


In Your Stead

by lilolilyrae



Series: Just You And Me - Until The End. [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy | Andromache of Scythia Regains Immortality, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author's Favorite, Bodyswap, Canon - Movie, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Fix-It, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Immortal family, Kissing, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Canon, Searching for Quynh | Noriko, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26795770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae
Summary: Drowning under the sea for decades and centuries, Quynh suddenly wakes up on land- in Andromache's body.The two women switch bodies back and forth while Quynh's is still trapped in the iron coffin, and they have to find their way back to each other before the switches can kill Andy.Nowcompletewith epilogue- and illustrations!!!
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: Just You And Me - Until The End. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980067
Comments: 358
Kudos: 268





	1. 1665 - 1812

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted in incomplete short parts on my draft blog: @thelucyverse on tumblr.
> 
> My personal blog there is @lilolilyrae, and if you want to talk about fandom try @lilolilyr :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: The Beginning

_"Just you and me..." "Until the end."_

* * *

_1665 - 1812_

When Quynh is ripped away from Andromache, screaming her lover's name-

When she is thrown into into an iron coffin, locked in and dragged away in it-

When she is escorted through the city to the port, accompanied by the constant shouting and preaching of the people and priests- 

When she is carried onto a ship, almost getting sea-sick and unable to move, constantly struggling, trying to get away somehow-

The magnitude of what has happened doesn't quite sink in.

She can't think properly, too focused on trying to make her escape, too distracted by all the _noise_...

Then, she is thrown into the water, and while they lift the coffin over the railing, while she feels herself falling, feels the impact of the metal into the water, feels her clothes get wet and take a last desperate breath of air, she has the sudden realisation that this might be it.

_She will die here._

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, when her time has come the way it had for Lykon, when she is ready to say goodbye to the land of the living the way he had been, she is going to die and never wake up again.

She will never see Andromache again.

She will never breathe again.

Yusuf and Niccolo might never even know what happened to her, if Andromache doesn't-

She can't hold her breath much longer. 

Tears in her eyes are useless against the body of water she is sinking in, yet she keeps them open, keeps looking at the play of the rays of sunlight in the water for as long as possible.

Then, she succumbs to darkness, and when she wakes again she barely has time to realise how little light comes through to her anymore.

The coffin turns a few times while it sinks into the vast darkness of the sea, but when it hits the ground the hole where her face is is facing upwards.

Perhaps she should be grateful for that- not entirely locked in between metal and the ground after all.

Instead, she doesn't _think_ enough to notice the possibility at all.

It goes on like that.

There is water in her lungs-

A pressure on her chest, her ears, her lungs, her eyes.

There is water in her lungs, and she silently screams.

Death.

Wake.

Die.

Come back and die again.

It’s nothing new, now.

She has no idea how long she has been down here, nor does she think about it or anything else. When all you do is die, there is little time or reason for rational thought.

As a way of torture, her current predicament would be quite imperfect- the victim has no time to mull over their sins, to spill any secrets at all.

To drive someone insane, though…

Not that there was any particular reason for her suffering. She had just been put away.

Live, die, live, die, wake-

Wake?

There’s air around her. She can breathe.

Her lungs aren’t filled with water at all.

She isn’t _wet_.

She can _think_ now and realise that this is, indeed, a change.

She isn’t wet. Why isn’t she at the very least wet, when she had just been in the ocean?

Has she died? For real this time? She remembers dying many times and always coming back. In the water, and- _before_.

Before, when she was with the other immortals.

When she had still been able to breathe, to think, to see, to feel-

Didn’t she look different, then?

Her hands look wrong.

There is no hair in her face.

Her body feels- different.

Trembling, she lifts a hand up in front of her eyes to inspect it properly when-

Someone is talking to her. Several someones. They have been talking amongst themselves, now they are talking to her. She knows their faces, but it takes her a while to remember their names...

* * *

Yusuf and Nicolo are going over their plans again.

It's probably unnecessary- they've gone over it three times already, nothing has changed, they're aware of the possible problems and they aren't going to disappear by talking it through another time, but- well.

The latest attempt with the submarine didn’t exactly work out. If this time won't go any differently, they will either have to change the operation to something else or improve the damn machine themselves.

Yusuf wants to add something when Nicolo touches his arm, nodding at Andromache.

The woman has a hand in front of her eyes, trembling.

“Andrea? Andromache?” he slowly moves to put a hand on her shoulder, careful not to startle her. “Andromache, please- we will keep looking, you know we will keep looking. We will find her soon enough, you will see-”

Nicolo nods along emphatically, shifting around the blueprints of the submarine.

To their shock, the woman in front of them burst into tears.

* * *

_They will keep looking._

Keep looking, underwater? They are looking for _her!_ They want to find her, her friends want to find her, they are going to _free_ her!

She is going to _live_ again!

Quynh bursts into tears.

_They are looking for her._

It seems to be a difficult endeavor, and how could it be any different? She remembers now that the water she had drowned in, over and over, is the _ocean_ , the largest body of water there is. How could they get to her at all?

But they are trying.

They are looking for her.

But- she is here! She isn’t drowning anymore! Why are they still looking?

Except- this isn’t _her_ at all, is it? This is a different body.

 _Andromache_.

Her love.

Who isn’t here now at all.

“It should be me down there” she whispers. “This is all wrong, it should be me-”

“Andrea” Nicolo says, sounding pained. “We have been over this, you are not-”

“It should be me!” she starts to sob again. “I should not be here at all…”

Gently, the men gather her into their arms, letting her cry until she falls asleep.

* * *

Andromache is looking at the scattered sheets of paper in front of her.

This isn’t getting them anywhere.

The ocean is too big, the area they have to search too vague, even if the submarine technology gets more reliable soon they'd still barely have a chance.

She knows it, and the others know it, too.

Still, she can’t stop.

She has to keep going, keep looking, or she thinks she’ll go insane.

They don’t even know whether Quynh is alive anymore.

Andrea doesn’t know whether she should hope for her to be or not.

If she’s hoping for anything, it’s for her to be free. She’d even be willing to take her place instead, if that were in any way possible.

“What do you think about this one?” Nicolo asks, pushing over the mechanical sketch. “It will fit two.”

“What’s that going to help? You’re not going to let each other go down alone, and _I_ won’t stay behind.”

Yusuf and Nico promptly start arguing about which of them should stay at the surface- namely, each thinking the other shouldn’t go- and Andromache blocks out their bickering. It's a discussion they already had before, anyway.

She feels a headache forming and massages her forehead.

Shouldn’t it be impossible for immortals to get headaches?

Apparently not.

Joshua tries to take the plans away from Nicolo, and Andrea is almost ready to tell them to shut up and quit it when-

_Water is flooding her lungs._

Trying to breathe, to get away, Andromache’s arms only hit cold metal and water.

_I’ve gotten my wish now_ , she dimly thinks as the oxygen runs out. _I’m in her place, now._

Then she dies, and when she wakes she only knows pain and her own screams, silenced by the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~2020-10-03~~ 2020-12-18  
>  ~~Leave a comment and I'll let you know when I post more!~~ **well, it's finished now :D but if you leave a nice comment under every chapter I shall love you forever and ever!**
> 
> 2020-12-02  
> Update: there's [fanart](https://someonesartdump.tumblr.com/post/636395510586064896/an-impossible-search-for-the-loss-of-an-immortal)!


	2. 1812

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most people don't immediately believe in the supernatural, even if it is already right in front of them. Hell, not even if they are already well acquaintend with supernatural things of a different kind...
> 
> Alternative Title: The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-04  
> Btw if you were reading this on tumblr before, the chapter numbers are different, I combined parts to make longer ao3 chapters and I'm also adding parts in-between that I hadn't posted on tumblr at all :)

_1812_

Once their friend has fallen asleep, Yusuf and Nicolo quietly gather and put away their papers before Yusuf gently picks up the woman and carries her to bed.

She looks exhausted even in her sleep.

By Allah, this search is taking a toll on them all.

He understands, of course, why Andrea can’t stop looking, why she picks up the search properly every time a new technology is developed. If it were his Nicolo down there…

He looks over to where his lover is leaning in the doorway and has to supress a shudder. Yes, he would do the same, he knows it without a doubt. He would keep looking for his heart and if it destroyed him.

It’s a wonder Andromache stayed as sane as she did, all things considered...

Nico walks up to him and hugs him from behind, and Yusuf kisses his hands before looking back to An.

It feels almost peaceful, like parents watching a child- although, of course, Andromache is the one much older than them. They had been the children of the group, long ago.

Slowly, so as not to spook the sleeping warrior, they settle in the battered armchair, the only seating in her room, and watch Andromache sleep.

The peace doesn't last for long:

When she awakes, it is with a scream.

* * *

_Breathing water not air-_

_Screaming, soundlessly, into the dark-_

_A pressure on her that feels unreal-_

_The_ pain _-_

Andromache wakes with a scream.

Yusuf and Nicolo are by her side within moments, cautiously trying to calm her.

She doesn’t even try to push them away, the nightmare still too close on her mind, too real.

It almost feels as if it had _been_ real.

“I was- I was drowning” she gasps out, hands fisting in Nicolò's shirt while Yusuf strokes her hair.

“I was in the iron coffin in Quynh’s stead, and I couldn’t get out, but at least she was free- and I couldn’t get out, and I just drowned, and _drowned_ -”

Yusuf and Nico share a look.

“You can’t go on like this, Andromache” Yusuf says, rubbing her arm.

“You’re hurting yourself, thinking like that.” Nicolo adds. “You don’t deserve to drown any more than Quynh does.”

Yusuf nods. “You should not hope that you were in her place. It is only giving you nightmares.”

“And it is impossible, of course, so you shouldn’t torture yourself with it.”

Andrea burrows her face in her hands. How have they guessed her thoughts so exactly?

The men sit down on either side of her, hugging her, not demanding anything of her.

They are the only people in the entire world she dares to appear vulnerable around, and even with them she never quite manages to let her guard down entirely, the way she used to around Quynh.

“Maybe we should take a break” Nicolo says after a while.

Yusuf squeezes her arm, she knows that he agrees with Nico.

“Yusuf- Nico. You know I can’t-”

“Yes, Andromache, we know you cannot stop looking, and neither can we, truly. Quynh will always be one of us. But it has been over a century. You need a break- a vacation, if you want to have the energy to continue the search at all. Don’t ruin yourself over this, too.”

Silently, Andromache starts to cry.

Her friends keep holding her close.

After she has calmed down a little, Andromache notices how tired she is. 

Downright exhausted. 

She hadn't felt a _need_ for sleep like that since- ever, really. And she has only just woken up a few minutes ago...

 _Maybe, I really do need a break_ , she thinks just before the comforting presence of her friends lulls her to sleep.

_A change in pace._

* * *

On the next day, Andromache carefully rolls up the maps of the seas that are covering the tables and walls so they will not be damaged while they are away.

She might need a break, but just to make sure that she is functioning properly, so she can start her search for Quynh with new strength afterwards.

She's never going to give up on her... but the boys are right. She can't go on like this, either.

Nico finds them a pretty little vacation home in greece, and Anthea, her 'husband' Josef and her 'brother' Nico move in, largely unbothered by the natives.

They go swimming, shopping, Nico cooks them good food and Andromache and Josef start learning a new dance together.

It's- _nice_.

It would be better if Quynh had been there with them, commenting on An's dancing skills, Nicolò's food and Yusuf's poetry and buying them each clothes much more fashionable than either of them know how to choose.

Her absence is a constant thorn in Anthea's heart, but she manages to enjoy herself despite it.

Her love wouldn't have wanted her to be entirely miserable... at least, she hopes so.

Then, only a few days into their so-called ‘vacation’, however, they start to dream of a certain frenchman...

It might not be a holiday anymore, but at least, searching for a new immortal will certainly be a change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's still here? :)  
> are you a team _Andy's-Mortality-Is-Tragic-But-That's-Why-The-Film's-So-Good_ or team _Mortality-Who-?-Andy-Lives-Forever-!!!_? :D


	3. 1812 - 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: The Frenchman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-05  
> tw: mentions drowning as always; mentioned canon minor character death; slight homophobia
> 
> (part 4-6 of the [tumblr wip posts](https://thelucyverse.tumblr.com/post/629723094174629888/andromaquynh-fanfiction-in-your-stead))

_1812 - 1945_

For years, they search for the man in their dreams instead of looking for Quynh.

For years, Andromache suffers silently, not wanting to burden the others with her pain but unable to forget about Quynh even for a moment.

It’s maddening, the waiting, wanting to go back to her mission but having to find this Frenchman first.

Of course, she could leave Yusuf and Nicolò to it, go back to her mission on her own, and a few times she is almost ready to do just that- but when she does her research in a university library they pass, or a marine research centre, the answer is always the same: The submarines barely get any further down than they did the last time she checked, and the ocean is even deeper than people had thought possible.

None of it would help her find Quynh, so she might as well go look for the weird new guy first- maybe he'll turn out to be useful, and at the very least she'll get rid of the dreams as quickly as possible this way.

And, of course, he might be dreaming about Quynh. 

Andrea tries not to think about that- tries not to hope for it, because really, who would curse another to such torture? But if it means news about Quynh...

She's egoistic enough to prefer that option.

When they do finally reach the man- Sébastien le Livre, what a pretentious new french name-, he is anything but enthused about a lifetime of ‘cursed immortality’. Not even Nicky’s insistence that, as a man of the Lord, he knows that they aren’t cursed, can pull him out of his misery- the hatred of his own family is too strong.

His wife thinks that he is a demon who came back from hell, his brother is jealous of his powers and wants him to share them with him, unwilling to believe that he can't and his children don't quite know what to believe but don't dare to touch him anymore...

Still, le Livre stays with his family instead of joining the other immortals.

It's a bad idea even with a nice family, Andromache knows this all too well. She barely remembers her own blood family, but there were other groups and clans she stayed with until they all found death... it's a gruesome thing, being the only survivor, but if it is a group of people who love you, at least you're getting _something_ positive out of it. Whether or not it is worth the pain...

Well. No-one in le Livre's family appears to truly love him at all, so that's a redundant question.

Soon- well, soon for an immortal, but in reality, decades have passed, Livre's wife dead and his children grown- Andrea can’t watch him destroy himself any longer.

Can’t, more importantly, put off her search for Quynh for another moment, doomed though it is.

Especially not now that she knows for sure that she is still alive: le Livre _has_ dreamt of her, drowning again and again, the way he had dreamt of all of them before they met.

She still doesn’t know how to find her.

It feels ridiculous to even try.

Wistfully, she remembers the days when the possibility of submarines was exciting and new, when they had all thought that the new technology would have to be their way to Quynh.

Now that it has sunken into her mind properly, she knows that it's just another faulty piece of tech, only slowly improved and meanwhile not helpful at all... and all the other complications are at the front of her mind again, too.

Most prominently: the ocean is so _vast_. Where is she even going to start looking?

She still dreams of drowning, sometimes, though never as vividly as that first time. She knows they are just that- just dreams- now.

Until one day, when- she is sitting on a rock, staring at the sea, trying to stop herself from just throwing herself into the waves, knowing it would be a useless pain but feeling like everything else is useless just the same-

She didn’t notice that she fell asleep, yet she _must have_ dozed off.

Must have, because when she comes to, it is with a pained, terrified scream, and she has to feel her dry clothes on her skin to make sure she didn’t fall into the sea and drown for real.

What if it _was_ real? What if she had really been in Quynh’s stead for just a moment?

But she is still sitting on that same rock, unmoved, unchanged.

Still- a lingering hope that she is helping to carry her beloved’s pain this way remains.

She jumps down from her place on the boulder, feeling a toe hit something sharp as she lands but not caring much about it as she makes her way over the beach. 

She has to save Quynh.

Whether true or her imagination, drowning feels absolutely terrible, one of the worst ways to die imaginable, and she only suffered through it a few times...

Quynh is experiencing this for over two centuries, now.

When she reaches her stash and she reaches down, Andromache's eyes fall to the bloody mess that is her toe.

It's healed, now, of course it is- but she must have hurt it more than she had thought, if it bled for so long.

That's what she is getting from being inattentive. 

The mighty Andromache of Scythia, taken down by a pebble or a glass shard. 

Shaking her head at herself, she grabs her bags and is on her way.

* * *

When Quynh wakes from the eternal dying for the second time, she is alone.

 _No- Andromaque_ is alone. And she, Quynh, is in the wrong body.

Her eyes are staring at the sea, her ears listening to the waves break at the shore.

Somehow, it is a peaceful sight- to look at it from the outside, not trapped beneath the water any longer.

She could move now- walk, run, jump around, but now that the possibility is there, she doesn't quite feel the need for it anymore.

She isn't in pain.

Everything else is secondary.

Then, Quynh remembers that her being here might mean that An is in the coffin under the sea in her place, and she freezes.

A tiny part of her thinks that she _deserves_ it, for staring at the water instead of working on getting her out.

With the vast ocean in front of her, she is forced to realise that it might just be impossible to find her down there.

 _Ever_.

Mostly, she is glad for the reprieve- even though Andromache does not deserve to drown, either.

Her thoughts are a jumbled mess, and she is afraid that, if she had stayed under the water much longer without a moment to literally breathe, she might have gone insane.

Or maybe she has gone insane, and this is a fever dream...

But you can't even have nightmares while you're drowning.

Oh, poor Andromache, who is suffering now in her stead and who spends the rest of the time pointlessly searching for her.

Should she leave a message for her? Tell her that she isn’t doing it on purpose, this switching back and forth?

Before she can decide, before she can even remember any written words or codes, she feels a tingling sensation wash over her.

Quynh breathes in air into Andromache’s lungs one final time.

* * *

Before the others finally join her again in her search for Quynh, Andromache had almost been ready to give up.

She’s not making any progress, none of the submarines go deep enough, none of her calculations on currents and movement are of any value when she doesn’t _know_ the currents that far under the sea…

But now that the others have joined her, it’s going to be better. Right? Together, they have to be able to think of _something_ -

It does not, in fact, get better.

Le Livre is in an even worse state than when she had last seen him.

She hadn't expected him to be doing well, exactly- she had known what he was putting himself through, after all- but still, this picture of pure misery is something else.

Even the constantly in love Niccolo and Yusuf are in a fairly bad mood because of it, and that is quite a feat to accomplish.

Nothing is improving.

Together, they can only do the same faulty calculations four times as fast as alone, can fruitlessly search for better equipment with eight eyes instead of two.

Nothing changes.

When the world changes around them, it is never for the better: One war is followed by the next, world leaders commit crimes so gruesome even Andromache feels the need to step in, away from her search and to war.

Militaries develop new submarines, too, but when Andrea finally gets a look at them, they still aren't good enough for her purposes.

_Nothing is helping._

It’s almost a relief, then, when she feels her body shudder and she is suddenly under the sea again…

Except then, the water is flowing into her lungs, and there is no relief at all.

* * *

Sébastien le Livre is miserable.

It's a wonder he still remembers his first name.

He had been called Sébastien by his wife and papa by his children (before they all started to call him a demon, before they all started to die).

Now, the other immortals call him 'Livre' for brevity’s sake and because they don’t quite have the level of familiarity necessary for first names or nicknames yet- although ironically enough, more often than not he needs to use their first names for them to even notice he's talking to them.

He's not even sure Andrea _has_ a last name.

At the moment, Sébastien is sitting at the ugly table in the living room and staring into space while the others are talking amongst themselves.

He rarely participates in their conversations, and he doesn't do so now either, drowning out the voices with his thoughts and memories.

These people are barely human in his eyes. They've lived too long to remember what it even _means_ to be human. To remember the pain.

Whether they're scheming a complot to fight in a war or for women's suffrage, discussing the newest firearms, planning their always constant rescue mission or discussing food and the weather, he wouldn’t know or care.

Well, he noticed enough in the past to know that all of these are valid possibilities. 

When he first met the other immortals, he had hoped for explanations.

When he first met them, he had hoped for a way _out_.

All they have given him is someone to share his misery with, when all he wants is die alone.

They are looking for another one- a woman, Andrea's- _Andromache’s_ woman, that much is too hard to miss even for someone as purposefully unobservant as him.

He doesn’t care for her- for Andrea, for the stranger, for any of them.

But if they find the drowning one, his nightmares are going to stop- no, not stop, lessen, because he still has a lot of his own demons to fight.

Yusuf and Nicolo disappear into the kitchen- the latter presumably to make something to eat, the former to distract the latter with a snog.

It’s really saying something that Sébastien is more focused on how funny it is that immortals still need to eat than on how the two men are going to be- _together_.

That was something simply not _done_ where he comes from, not even in the war when there weren’t any women around- although he had heard rumors of it, then. No matter. These two are too in love to be _bad-_ or to be bothersome to himself.

Andrea is still staring at the map in front of them- and with a start, Sébastien notices that she isn’t frowning as usual, but indeed starting to cry.

And what on earth is he supposed to do about _that?_

"...is this about her?" Sébastien asks the crying woman in front of him.

"I'm sure we'll find her... Quynh... at some point..."

Andromache doesn't acknowledge his words, but at the name 'Quynh', she smiles at him under tears.

Sébastien gives her an awkward nod.

Maybe these age-old immortals are still somewhat human, after all...

* * *

Quynh wakes to the face of a stranger in front of her.

Is waking even the right word? She hadn’t been asleep in a long time.

It still feels like waking from a nightmare.

Who is the man she is looking at? A mortal?

Maybe he is- maybe he is _with_ Andromache.

She might have finally moved on.

On the one hand, Quynh wants An to find her happiness again, and with her still dropped at the bottom of the ocean, it has to be with somebody else- on the other hand, the thought makes her throat constrict and her fingernails dig into her skin.

Quickly, she looks away before the man can meet her eye.

As she looks down, she finds the table in front of her covered in maps, some she recognises, some entirely new to her...

Tears form in her eyes.

She might not understand the writing on all of the paper, but one thing she knows for sure:

_Andromache has not forgotten about her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification: I did not write about Quynh dreaming about Booker because I don’t think she would be able to sleep or dream at all while caught and dying under the sea.
> 
> Quynh’s reaction here is inspired by [this prompt fill](https://afterlaughy.tumblr.com/post/630271402787880960/prompt-quynh-broke-into-andys-latest-safe-house) by [@afterlaughy](https://tmblr.co/myDrcztImN8cJCdi7lz7few) on tumblr
> 
> Leave a comment and I'll tell you when I post the next chapter!


	4. 1972-1988

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: Notes and Promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-07  
> Had to skip uploading yesterday, but I'm back!  
> Uni meetings happened & then I had to hand in my thesis exposé (again, ugh), and when I finally did have time I had ideas about later parts of this story I just had to write before I forgot about them, so I didn't manage to go over this part! Hope you're still here a day later :)
> 
> It's still a bit of a shorter chapter than planned because I cut it in two, so the total chapter count is up to 6 atm... Might turn into seven soon xD I keep adding stuff everywhere...
> 
> Btw I also worked out a proper timeline for this fic, you can have a look at it [here](https://lilolilyrae.tumblr.com/post/631240120024039424/obsessive-much) if you want to xD & I added a few sentences to the old chapters bc of it, eg when I noticed the last one is set right during the world wars lmfao, felt like that'd need a mention!

_1972-1988_

Andromache doesn’t believe that these visions, these experiences, are dreams any longer.

Can’t believe that any more at all.

It happened again, again and again, and in-between 'normal' dreams of drowning, her time in Quynh's body stands out in terrifying clarity.

Plus, Quynh actually moved around her body now, has spoken to Yusuf Nicolò, so she definitely wasn't just asleep.

Not that the men are aware of who they were talking to.

Despite it happening two times since le Livre joined them, she still hasn’t told the others- not even Yusuf and Niccolo.

She’s quite sure that they would think that she has gone entirely insane.

But she _knows_ that what she has seen, what she has felt, is _true_.

She has _drowned_ , over and over, in Quynh’s body.

Has struggled against the metal binding her.

Has woken again as herself only to find tears on her skin, once to find Yusuf and Niccolo talking as if in the middle of a conversation with her that she doesn’t remember having.

As if someone else had really been in her body while she had been away…

Quynh- it must be Quynh, who else would it be?- has never left a note or anything else showing her for sure that she has been there, has never told Yusuf or Niccolo who she is.

Maybe she just hadn’t thought of it. 

Honestly, Andromache is surprised that she had been sane enough to hold a conversation with them at all, after drowning for so long, when she herself feels rattled by it after mere minutes or hours. It gives her hope, though- that Quynh might not be beyond saving.

She promises herself that she will get her out before it ever gets to that.

(You shouldn't make promises you don't know for sure you can keep.)

For the moment, Quynh appears to be lucid enough, whenever she acts in Andromache's stead.

She just wishes she could communicate with her properly.

There is no way to leave a note in the iron coffin, even if she stayed lucid long enough to write one.

She could try carving one into her- into _Quynh’s_ skin, but something is telling her that she would neither get very far, nor would the message stay long enough for Quynh to notice.

Not that there is any light down there to read it with…

The time Quynh apparently spoke with Yusuf and Niccolo, they were talking in Scythian and Vietnamese when Andrea came back- not the only languages Quynh had been able to speak, _before_ , but maybe the only languages she remembers...

Possibly also the only ones that stayed similar enough for her to understand.

Andromache never cared for any language in particular to try and preserve it the way it was at a certain time.

In her opinions, languages are as fluid and constantly changing as the world they're part of, as the people speaking them.

The only languages that stay the same are those that have gone extinct.

Yusuf appears to think that Scythian and Vietnamese are Andromache’s comfort languages now, as she seems to use them while or just before breaking down.

She doesn’t correct his assumption.

She doesn’t know what do do about it, so she tries not to think about these occurrences, this switching of body or mind.

She doesn’t know why it happens, or how- maybe she is a little afraid to find a way to do it on purpose.

Afraid of what her decision might be, then…

They still look for Quynh, but the team also starts to fight in different conflicts again, whatever feels urgent enough to have a look at.

Crimes, wars, intrigues.

Sometimes, Andromache comes with them, more often than not, she stays behind.

Searching for Quynh- and keeping her save, making sure she doesn't have to wake in the middle of a massacre when they switch.

Quynh had been a good fighter, but she had never been a born warrior like Andromache.

She'll prefer the quiet of home.

The next time Andromache feels the eerie shivers that always precede the switch, she is lying in bed, a notebook with ideas to deal with a human trafficker in her hands.

When she notices the feeling, she quickly opens the book to a blank page and writes the first three words that come to her mind:

_'I miss you.'_

* * *

_Have you ever had a dream so realistic, you thought it was a real memory?_

_One that felt so real that, after waking up, you were not entirely convinced that reality might not be the dream, and the dream reality?_

Sometimes, Quynh is not sure which body, which reality, is _hers_ anymore.

Drowning for what feels like forever, yet it is all blurring together into one long and nightmarish moment of pain- there could be minutes or centuries in-between the more tangible time spent as Andromache.

She tries to tell the time by the change in style and technology she sees there, but all it tells her is that there are probably at least years in-between her visits- whether they are years, decades or centuries or millennia, she still doesn’t know.

Maybe she should try to look for a written date somewhere, but her reading comprehension isn’t what it used to be, many of the fonts look incredibly foreign, and- and she is a little afraid of just _how much_ time might have passed.

It’s a blessing, sometimes, not knowing.

One time, when she wakes up, she happens to be alone with Yusuf and Niccolo. They are cuddling on the couch, the three of them, and somehow, their familiar presence calms her enough to speak. 

“ _Do you remember Bukhara?_ ” she asks in Vietnamese. “ _We used to all sleep on a couch just like this._ ”

A normal enough sentence that they will not expect her to be anyone but Andromache, yet there is a wistful tone to her voice that makes Yusuf- Yoshua, Niccolo calls him- hold her closer as he describes the city the way he remembers it.

It’s the first time since the witch hunts that she actually has a conversation, even if it is only one reminiscing about the past.

Later, she sees the third man walk past- Livre, his name or nickname is. French for ‘Book’, which Niccolo- Nico, now- also calls him sometimes.

When the Frenchman briefly squeezes her shoulder as he walks by, Quynh thinks that he seems to be sad about something, but she doesn't dare ask as it is probably information Andromache is already privy to.

At least, she can understand this language again, too, at least a little. She had never been fluent in speaking it before, so she doesn't worry about it too much.

Yet another time, when she comes to she is lying down in what must be An’s sleeping place, a thin paper book with metal binding in hand.

For a moment, she stares at the letters on the page it is opened to, not automatically reading them… it’s a short sentence, just three words scribbled into the middle of the page- can it be? Is it a _message_ for her?

When she finally remembers enough letters to decipher it, tears form in her eyes. _Andromache’s_ eyes that she is so temporarily using.

_‘I miss you.’_

_She misses her._

Anh really is switching with her, then, knows that Quynh is still alive, knows that she is here right now.

Quynh fumbles for the strange fountain pen laying next ot her- it is already full of ink, and she gets some on her hands as she struggles to open it. 

With a shaky hand, she writes: _'I you too'_

She used to be able to write these letters and many others in beautiful cursive, and there were different ways of writing she had known as well… Now, she is just copying the style she has seen in Andromache’s current world, vaguely remembering a time when it was new.

It will have to do.

Once she is pulled back into the sea, she still thinks of An’s letter for several moments of half-lucidity in-between her next deaths, longer than she had managed to stay focused down there in centuries.

* * *

When Andromache sees Quynh's message to her, she feels the sudden, silly urge to press a kiss to the page.

She refrains from doing so.

Quynh has never really been in the room, the only hands that held the notebook are her own.

Her smell is never in the air. She barely remembers it now.

Quynh's message to her, however, is very real.

After staring at it for another moment, she wipes tears from her eyes that might have been Quynh's, might have been her own, before resolutely flicking back to the pages with the mission information and going over it again.

She feels drained, as she always does after a switch, but she forces her eyes to stay open.

They are leaving for the base they scoped out tomorrow, after all. She hadn't planned on joining them, but after just having switched with Quynh, she doesn't have an excuse anymore-

And she does want to make sure these criminals don't get away.

Wants to save the kidnapped people from a life in captivity...

So what if she is taking this a little too personal.

The mission to take down the traffickers and save their human cargo goes well.

Well- almost.

At least, it should have.

They split up early on, covering all exits so no-one can escape or take any of the kidnapped people with them.

Andromache finds a group of men with guns and takes most of them down without getting as much as a scratch on herself.

You might think that someone as invincible as them wouldn't bother trying to duck away from bullets- and from what she's seen, Livre certainly doesn't, getting shot in the chest or head more often than not, probably still seeking his absolution- but when you have lived as long as Andromache, fought as many fights as she did, it is almost too easy to kill without getting killed.

Plus, while she doesn't necessarily enjoy life the way it is now, she doesn't have a death wish.

Lazily shooting the last man in the kneecaps so she can still question him while he's down, she walks forward- and is hit in the chest with a bullet when he draws a second concealed gun.

She almost laughs.

The shot went clean through her, she'll be up to haunt him before he can drag himself halfway to the door on his broken legs.

When she wakes up, everything is silent.

No sounds of guns and fighting anywhere, not even in the distance.

She is alone in the room.

Her chest is covered in blood.

She feels _exhausted_. 

With trembling hands, Andromache rips through her shirt to reassure herself that she has, indeed, healed.

Strokes over her unscathed if bloody skin.

Why did she loose so much blood?

How long has she been out of it?

Stumbling to her feet and reaching out to a wall when she sways, she drags herself out of the room to search for the others.

When she finds them, Yusuf and Nicolò are helping the last of the trafficking victims into their cars, giving them blankets and water while Livre is looking at the surveillance screens, making sure that there is no recording of them left. Andromache hopes that it was just a life feed, that he won't find a video of her last death and weakness.

Nicolò looks up and grins when he sees her.

"Jesus, Andrea, how many bullets did they hit you with?" he asks when he sees her bloodied state.

"I didn't count." What Andromache doesn't say is that she didn't have to- that it had just been the one.

She's glad that she ripped her shirt earlier, so the lonely bullet hole isn't as obvious anymore.

She doesn't want them to notice because she doesn't want to think about it.

She _can't_ become mortal.

Not when Quynh is still caught under the sea, when she still has to find her.

She needs to keep her promise.

* * *

The next time she dies, she is back within moments.

The others think nothing of it, but Andromache breathes a sigh of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment and I'll let you know when I upload more :)
> 
> Also if you find any typos etc feel free to let me know, but apart from that I'm not interested in criticism as I don't have the time for bigger changes anyway!


	5. 1994-1997

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: Loss and Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-08  
> (well already -09 bc it's almost 1am here but given that ao3 won't let me switch the date to that yet anyway I'll count it as a win for the daily updates xD although I had to cut it in 2 yet again bc it turned into a monster and I didn't have more time...)
> 
> Love reading all your thoughts and ideas of what it might mean and where it might go, but not all of you are on the right track! No spoilies here, but I've got the story laid out already and I won't change the premise :D altho again some of your ideas could be turned into some nice AU versions of this fic xD

_1994_

_When a new immortal is born, there is nothing telling the others about the occurence._

_No grand announcement, no shift in reality._

_On the fourteenth of November 1994, a baby girl is born, and her parents decide on the name Nile- Nile Freeman._

_The child still has the rest of her life in front of her._

_And it is going to be a long one._

* * *

_1996-1997_

At first, Sébastien doesn’t notice that he doesn’t dream of the drowning one anymore.

It’s a relief, really.

Every night he isn’t haunted by nightmares counts as a win, and he doesn’t linger on the thought any further than that.

Someone else, however, notices…

* * *

Andrea had suspected that there is a logic to the shared dreams of the immortals for a while now.

None of them know how it works, of course. They dream of each other until they meet- so they can meet?

Nico and Josef are much too convinced of some _deity_ being behind it, which Andromache can’t believe at all. There has to be some logic behind it all.

In the past, when she was always fighting in some war or uprising or another, she hadn’t had the time to figure it out- or maybe she had just died too often then to figure it out:

Their deaths appears to be the connection.

At the moment, she doesn’t dream about anyone herself, but Livre quite reliably informs her of his dreams, complaining about every little inconvenience the way he always does.

Maybe he would stop if she told him to.

She knows Yusuf and Nicolo expected her to do so, thinking that it causes her too much pain… But her need to know about Quynh, paired with her curiosity about the nature of the dreams, is much stronger than her pain.

After a few decades of paying close attention, she is almost convinced that her theory is correct.

It goes as follows: whenever Livre dies- not when he was just stabbed and healed instantly, not when he had been shot but it didn't really bring him down, but only when his heart stopped, his eyes rolled back in his head and he got the full experience of _coming back to life_ \- that’s when, the next time he sleeps, he will dream of _drowning_.

Now certain of her theory, Andromache doesn't pay as much attention to it anymore these days, only registering each time he does talk about her as a faint reminder that yes, Quynh is still out there, her condition unchanged.

As if she needs the reminder.

At the moment, however, it is close on her mind again.

Yesterday- maybe still today, she doesn't look at the time as she is laying in bed, staring at the ceiling- Livre drowned.

It was during another useless ocean-expedition, which makes it Andromache's fault, as she had been the one to insist on trying despite the risks and how slim the chance of success still was.

Livre already has to suffer through the nightmares of Quynh because she failed to protect _her_ , and now he will dream of drowning after just having drowned himself... talking about trauma-inducing.

She kind of hopes that his memory isn't good enough for him to remember the incident for longer than a few decades.

The following day, Livre is notably silent.

He doesn't talk about any dreams at all.

At first, Andromache thinks that his personal experience with drowning made the dream seem less worthy of a mention, but mostly, she’s afraid to ask.

What if the dreams stopped?

What if Quynh is gone?

The next time Livre dies, it doesn’t have anything to do with drowning at all, so that theory is out- and yet, he doesn't mention the dream.

Andromache hopes that maybe, he’s just finally grown up- but he still complains about everything else, from his torn shirt to the fact that he found blood in his ear after showering three times already...

She knows that she will not rest until she knows for sure.

As they all sit down at the breakfast table, she asks him when he last dreamt of Quynh.

The fact that it is at the table with Nicolò and Yusuf is deliberate. She's afraid of going through this alone.

Andromache asks...

She gets her answer.

He hadn’t dreamt of her in a year.

Yusuf jumps from his seat to hug her while Nicolò just stares into the distance and Livre looks a little confused.

"It doesn't- it doesn't have to mean-" Andromache whispers.

She can't even say it.

_It doesn't have to mean that Quynh is dead._

"Of course-" Nicolò has to cough before he can continue to speak. "Of course it doesn't have to mean it-" he looks at Yusuf, asking for help.

"We don't know how the dreams work" Yusuf murmurs. "Maybe it just takes a bit longer now..."

Andromache shakes her head. "It happened when he died."

"What?" Livre asks, sounding lost.

"You dreamt of her when you had died, every time, without fail. And now you don't."

She feels like crying.

* * *

In the following days, Andromache feels broken in a way she had never felt before.

Now, she knows why this feeling is described as a 'broken heart'. The literal version of that would hurt less.

She has to know, it happened.

Everything feels numb, and completely on fire at the same time.

Of course, she has loved and lost before- yes, she does love, loved people and places many times in her long lifetime. If she shows herself as stoic and unemotional, forces herself to be that way, then it’s just for her own good: to protect herself from mortals who are just going to leave her again, who are just going to disappear, succumb to illnesses and life, and die.

After losing her family and many others after that, she had only allowed herself to really feel something for other immortals.

She loves Yusuf and Niccolo like brothers, she even starts to like Livre well enough.

When she loves, Andromache loves fiercly and completely.

She has been _in love_ with mortals in the past- first long before Quynh, before she stopped herself from loving mortals, and then even while with her- because with her, she sometimes allowed herself to indulge, knowing that once their mortal lovers were gone, they would still have each other.

She had only been _in l_ ove with one immortal.

Had been in love with Quynh for millenia.

Can she really be gone?

Lykon died.

Somehow, even after everything, Andromache had never properly considered the possibility of it happening to Quynh.

And what if she _isn't_ dead?

Yusuf and Nicolò are fairly certain that she is, and Livre is just glad the dreams stopped, Andromache thinks bitterly.

After staring at the wall of plans and maps of the sea for a few hours, Nico coaxes her away to get something to eat, and when she returns, Yusuf is taking down the last maps.

She screams at him like she never had before, barely even registering what she shots as she snatches the maps away from him, disappearing into her room and leaving his frozen form behind.

A part of her still knows that he meant well. That he didn't want her to freeze in front of the wall for eternity, constantly staring at the reminder of her failings. 

The rest of her is screaming that Quynh can't be dead, that she can't be gone, that they can't stop looking, not now, not now-

As she locks the door behind herself and collapses on the floor of her room, she remembers Quynh's last words to her.

_I (miss) you too._

Not spoken but written, as the last time they switched, she had actually communicated with Quynh.

Was that her goodbye?

Were three written words the only thing she would ever have left of her- that and her necklace, and of course all her painful memories?

But.

Wait.

Their switching- Livre's dreams aren’t the only thing connecting them to Quynh.

What if she hasn’t died?

But that doesn't explain why the dreams stopped.

Now that she properly thinks about it, it seems ridiculous, like grasping for straws...

Still.

What if the dreams just stopped without anything else happening? Because it's been too long? Never before has it taken centuries to find someone, after all.

Now, she is waiting.

_Waiting._

It has been decades since she last switched with Quynh- and, carefully writing down each instance it had happened on a spare piece of paper tucked between the pile of research and maps, she notices that each time is closer to the last that before.

When- if- _when_ it happens again, it will be soon.

And it has to happen again. Because Quynh can’t be dead, she _can’t_ -

Andromache hopes beyond hope that she is right.

And then, when she has almost given up- almost given into her grief, almost accepting her fate of laying here on the floor of her room for eternity until she shall die herself- she feels a strange sensation running through her body.

_Yes!_ She almost laughs under tears.

The feeling that precedes the switch consumes her, takes her away to drown.

She had never been so relieved to die before.

* * *

Quynh comes to in a body that is in a very bad state.

Andromache must not have eaten for days at least, perhaps longer if she died of starvation and came back in-between. It reminds her of her time in the desert, just before Andromache found her for the first time- dying of thirst and starvation and the heat, over and over again, almost sleeping through it at some point.

So long ago, now.

Why can't she sleep through drowning the way she slept through dehydration?

More important right now: why would Andromache starve herself?

Struggling to get up, to make the weak body move, she finds the door locked from the inside.

Why?

She looks around. the room, searching for a key.

It is there on the floor, next to a messy pile of maps and other papers...

The maps of the sea, the ones meant to find her.

Has Andromache given up? Have they found out that, for some reason, it is entirely impossible to ever get her out?

Is that why Andromache is so distraught?

She shivers.

Now more than ever she is grateful for the short reprieve.

Slowly opening the door and cautiously peering into the hallway, she finds a plate of lukewarm soup in the doorway.

Frowning, she picks up the bowl and retreats back into the room.

It's Nicolo's cooking- and something meant for a stomach that isn't used to food anymore.

How long had Andromache locked herself in here?

Sitting on the soft bed and eating the soup, Quynh hopes that whatever the reason was, it won't keep An down forever.

* * *

When Andromache comes back to herself, she stumbles and collapses backwards onto her bed.

She is alone, and glad for it- this would be a little difficult to explain.

Sobs shudder through her.

On second thought, the others would probably just think that she has finally given into her grief.

Grief.

They’ll expect her to grieve for Quynh- to give up looking- while Quynh is still drowning at sea.

Of course, this would be easily rectified by simply telling them the truth, but somehow the thought never even crosses her mind.

Everything feels blurry somehow.

She doesn't want to fake grief, but maybe her renewed desperation of Quynh still being imprisoned will be enough to fool them…

Before she can consider the matter any further, she has already fallen asleep.

* * *

“I am worried about Andromache” Yusuf says quietly to Nicolò a few days later, closing the kitchen door behind himself so the aforementioned won’t be able to surprise them. “Have you seen the look in her eyes? Haunted, as if something is chasing her wherever she goes, and she won’t talk to either of us…“

“I know you are worried” Nico sighs. “I am, too. When she started eating again, I think maybe... But now I think she is just trying to ignore that anything changed. And she is packing her things…”

“She’ll just go right back to her search! Does she think that we haven’t noticed the way she keeps looking at the maps?”

Nicolò leans against him, calming him a little. “I don’t know what she is trying to do, habibi. I don’t think we should let her go alone at all.”

“Maybe she needs to find her, though” Yusuf muses. “To get her closure… Find her body and bury it, see Quynh off properly…”

“Then she’d better find her quickly” Nico says darkly. “Won’t be much left of her otherwise.”

Yusuf shudders at that thought. He wants to say ‘don’t put me of dinner!’, but it seems tasteless- and then he thinks about it all some more and has to turn in Nicolò’s arms to hide his face in his neck.

“We can’t find her at all” he whispers into his skin. “If we ever do- she’ll be long gone by then.”

Nicolò can’t suppress a sob at that and he pulls Yusuf even closer.

Someone at the door startles them, and Yusuf quickly dries his tears on Nico’s shirt, but it is only Livre who gives them an awkward nod.

“Have you seen Andrea anywhere?” he asks them.

“I wanted to ask to borrow her colt for shooting practice…”

Yusuf freezes, a dark wave of premonition creeping into his mind.

“Have you seen her at all, today?”

Livre shakes his head, and next to himself Yusuf feels Nicolò freeze.

“She left without saying goodbye?”

In the living room, taped to the wall that once held map upon map of the sea, they find a single note.

_'I have to do this, you cannot stop me. Keep using the old places, and I will keep in touch. This is not goodbye. -A’_

Yusuf presses a kiss to the note before he passes it on to Livre and hugs Nicolò.

“She will be back” he whispers, hoping that it is true. “Wherever she needs to go to get over this- she will be back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't you glad that I didn't leave off in the middle with a cliffhanger? xD
> 
> Who's still here? I always love to read nice comments!


	6. 1998-2007

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: Finding Herself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-11  
> It's been days, I'm sorry!!! Really did mean to post more regularly, my sister moved into her dorm room yesterday though and I had to help more than expected... But I'm back :)
> 
> This is now officially the fanfic I have most researched for, ever. Not just have I rewatched the film and searched through all the character info fandom pages (especially Booker for some reason), I’ve also looked up the history of modern military submarines, commercial airplanes, firearms, events of the 1800s, Vietnamese and Vietnamese writing, Scythian/Iranian, French, how long it takes a person to drown (less than a minute if you’re unlucky) and which names similar to Andy were popular when and where. Oh, and I have now filled five sheets of paper with the math of the distance between the body-swaps as well as their length, and the timeline… Kmn

_1998-2007_

The immortals spend the turn of the century apart.

Andromache barely notices the passing of time, too absorbed in her work and too far apart from the rest of humanity, but Yusuf and Nicoló miss her presence greatly.

She should have been there for this great event!

Of course, it is not the first turn of the millenia Andromache has witnessed, neither is the calendar the one she would have grown up with. Still, they all feel a hole where she should be as they clink their champagne glasses together on New Year's eve.

"To life," Nicolò whispers as he meets Yusuf's eyes. 'To Quynh's memory, to Andromache, to us at least still being together', they do not say.

Neither of them notices Sébastien's sullen expression at the toast, nor do they think much about it when he downs his glass in one go and takes a different bottle of liquor from the shelf.

In the distance, fireworks explode in the night sky.

* * *

Alone, Andromache throws herself into her work.

She bases her operation in an old safehouse in the south of Norway that is really barely more than a cave by the sea, which she is fairly certain Nick and Yusuf have forgotten about by now as she had never gone back there after Quynh’s death.

It's also fairly spacious, enough so that she can really start working again: apart from comparing and drawing on maps and doing calculations of currents and movement, she also tries her hand at the mechanical side of things.

There is a lot to learn- did humanity really need fifty different ways to attach metal pieces to one another?- but it feels like all the studying will be worth it.

Finally, she actually manages to modify a submarine to withstand more pressure- probably not enough for a _deep_ deep sea, but enough for some places around Britain… and who knows, maybe the first place she starts looking in will be the one?

She can’t _not_ try.

The submarine works as it should, taking Andromache further and further into the ocean.

She has built two escape doors into the thing, too afraid of ending up trapped herself to go for anything less.

Maybe she should have just given the thing an unmanned test run instead…

While she has constructed the metal contraception to withstand more pressure, she hadn’t realised that a longer journey would also mean a need for additional oxygen.

She doesn’t have any.

Something goes wrong, she doesn’t know what, she doesn’t understand the dials on the wall anymore- and it is only then that she realises how _thin_ the air in the capsule has become-

Already half delirious, she struggles with the mechanism on the door, fumbling on with the lock before she manages to get out of the submarine- and into the open sea.

Her last thought before she drowns is how glad she is not to end up in her own version of an iron coffin.

_Before she drowns_.

If she hadn’t been quite so familiar with the feeling already, it might have come as more of a shock.

As it is, she manages to swim further up each time she comes back to life.

The useless submarine is almost out of sight, the surface already feels as if it is in her reach, but then- 

_Oh no!_

* * *

Quynh thinks that she has finally gone insane.

She is still drowning, trapped underwater as always-

but she isn’t trapped at all.

Her limbs flail in the water, she sees light- light! above her.

What is this?

She can’t remember freeing herself… Wouldn’t she remember that?

_Is_ she finally free?

Free?

_Free?_

Then, suddenly, she is back in her iron coffin.

The metal walls feel closer than ever, the darkness more vast and disturbing than before.

Sobbing in frustration, she hits the metal surrounding her,

and drowns.

* * *

After the fiasco with the submarine, Andromache knows that she has to take a step back, slow down.

At the very least, let the others know where she starts any new expeditions so they have a chance of finding her.

The terror of being caught in the submarine sits deep in her bones, the fear what the experience might have done to Quynh even deeper.

After she came to again in free water, had drifted further down again. Either Quynh hadn’t managed to keep swimming, or she had stayed dead for quite a bit in-between…

She doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

Taking money- cash- and a few valuables out of one of her hideouts stashed with a currency that is still in use, she decides to properly move in somewhere new.

She’ll send Yusuf and Nicolò a postcard- and, by extension, Livre, though she doesn’t quite care enough about him to care whether or not he knows where she is and whether or not she is alright.

Not that she is alright, not really.

But she is still alive, and she will keep fighting until she finds Quynh.

* * *

Andromache- Andy, now, because it lets her pass as a man when she feels like it and because it fits the language- settles on England. 

It’s surrounded by the sea in which Quynh's drowned, which still feels fitting, and additionally she knows that Yusuf and Nicolò absolutely despise the weather, so there’s no way she’ll run into them by accident.

As she walks through the streets of Dover, where the ship that brought her there without asking too many questions went to port, she swipes a newspaper and sees the date- 2003.

Two thousand and three.

Goodness, she missed the start of the twenty-first century.

The newspaper crumples in her fist.

She remembers how she and Quynh used to make plans for that day, for Yusuf and Nicolò.

_"You're not a real immortal if you have not seen a millennium go by!"_ Quynh would proclaim.

_"But we were born after the-"_

_"Pedantics!"_ Andy remembers Quynh interrupting Nicolò. _"We will celebrate with the traditions of all our cultures! Did you know that in my hometown, we had new year's flowers? I do not think that they grow here, but..."_

Andy's throat feels tight.

So long ago, and somehow it feels even longer, like all her memories of Quynh.

And now, the day has come and gone and she hadn't even noticed.

* * *

After getting a new ID from a contact of a contact of a contact, she sends the address of the guy to Livre, with a note that says, ‘job for you?’

They really should have one in their group who is able to fake a modern means of identification, and she knows that she won’t put in the work, Nico doesn’t have the steady hand needed for the job and Yusuf would rather not get in contact with the criminal underworld.

Livre, on the other hand, is perfect for the job.

Her feeling is proven true when, a month later, she gets a little package- how did he even get her address?!- with a passport identifying her as ‘Andreína Merensteen, polish citicen, born 1967′.

Alright, the name is- _interesting_ \- but _Wow_ , that thing looks like good work!

She’s fairly certain she could fly commercial with it without having to be worried of attracting undue attention.

Not that she’s about to test it.

In reply, she sends a bottle of old french wine to the return-adress. Maybe this Livre guy isn’t too bad, after all.

Andy keeps her hair short, both because it’s more practical and because in the current world, women have a lot of problems men don’t have.

Stupid gender rules, rising and falling in the past millenia, seem especially prominent in the twenty-first century. 

* * *

A few years into her new life, she switches with Quynh again. 

This time, she came prepared. 

In her room, she leaves Quynh a letter- not much about feelings because that isn’t her style, but a summary of the most important events since the 1600s, and she did sign it ‘Love, An’.

Next to that, she places a Vietnamese-English dictionary, because English seems to be the go-to language at the moment, as well as a few magazines, because Quynh always liked to stay up to date in both the written word and fashion, so these seem like things she might like.

She hopes the photographs won’t freak her out, those weren’t around yet during the witch-trials, after all… someone with a camera would have probably been hanged as a witch just like they had been strung up for their immortality.

For some reason, the thought makes Andromache smile. Maybe she’s getting morbid in her old age.

Really, it’s about time. 

Sitting down, she lets the wave of dizziness wash over her and drag her into the deep of the ocean, glad that while she still can’t save Quynh for good, she can at least give her this.

* * *

When Quynh wakes as Andromache again, she is alone in a new environment.

_An_ is alone. There is no-one to talk to anymore.

A few things are laid out in front of her, and Quynh makes a mental note to have a look at them should she stay here longer than a mere moment- for now, the window has caught her interest.

There is a town outside, and not like any she has ever seen before.

Houses to the horizon, it reminds her of much older civilisations, yet the shapes are all different…

And down on the road, shiny carriages move without horses there to draw them.

So this is the future, then.

In the distance, a red sun is slowly sinking.

With a shudder, Quynh draws back from where her face had almost been pressed to the window.

She needs to look for a lamp, a place to start a fire- for some reason, the thought of darkness makes her feel uneasy. Well, not for some unknown reason...

Instead of a fire, she finds light by accident, bumping into the switch in the wall when she turns, disoriented, from the many identical doorways she sees in the hall.

That problem solved, she settles on Andromache’s bed, looking at what is spread out there.

Faces staring from the pages of thin, smooth books.

Pictures, drawings, of course, they must be- but she has never before seen people depicted so _accurately_.

Somehow, they look as if they are ready to step out of the pages and into the room, filling it with miniature humans not even masters in painting had managed that in the past.

Their clothes are beautiful. Why isn’t Andromache wearing something like this?

She strokes over the garments on her body. A soft shirt and trousers with many pockets in them. Well, it could be practical for travelling... But it has nothing on the ballgown with the many bows!

Thus engrossed in the pictures, it takes Quynh a while to notice what else is laying on the bed, and she curses under her breath when she finds An’s letter to her. She would have almost missed it!

_Quynh,_

_I'm leaving you a dictionary from Vietnamese to English- I believe the latter changed more than the former, and maybe you can read the magazines this way. That's the thin books with the photographs- pictures of people taken with an apparatus that captures them as they look in real life._

_Things have changed since you have last lived in a city. Cities have grown, most people live closely together now._

_The witch trials came to an end soon after they had taken you._

_Humans have fought many wars in each part of the world. Some bigger than any wars of the past, with weapons that have the power to destroy entire towns._

_Apart from weapons, other inventions have been made too, horseless carriages, fireless light, a way to send messages through the air and treatments of illnesses and injuries._

_I haven't seen too much of the rest of the world, I believe you still have to be somewhere in the sea around Britain._

_This flat is located in England, it is my own, Yusuf, Nicolò and Sébastien le Livre are on the mainland. I am in contact with them._

_I hope you enjoy your presents._

_Love, An_

* * *

When Andy comes back, the sun has already set. She doesn’t know how long Quynh had been here exactly, but she thinks that she had never been gone for so long before…

At least it means that Quynh had enough time to enjoy her gifts, if the crumpled letter, the open dictionary and the magazine in her hand are any indication…

With a smile, Andromache lets herself fall backwards onto the bed and she is asleep within moments.

She doesn't wake up for two days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do be so kind and leave a comment if you've made it this far :)
> 
> Btw should I make this M-rated? Because I do have some ideas!


	7. 2008-2010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title: Technological Marvels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-12  
> Thanks to everyone who stuck around so far, left kudos and especially everyone who commented! You always make my day <3
> 
> Also definitely helped motivate me to keep going! And how did this fic turn into such a monster? It was supposed to be 5k 5 chapters, not whatever this is xD I had the outline since the beginning, but I just keep adding scenes and dialogue and feels everywhere... oh well xD
> 
> Also you might have noticed me changing the chapter titles, I just wanted to have the dates there, the old titles are now in the summary boxes of each chapter :)

_2008-2010_

Slowly, Andy gets in contact with the others again, sending them not just postcards but letters with return addresses, later even calling Joe's telephone.

She had gotten the number from Livre, he had scribbled it as a P.S. on a postcard from Arles (who leaves a postscript on a card? Only a weird old frenchman, that's who). Because she doesn't have a phone line herself, she had to go and find a payphone, something that seems to become more and more rare now that she has almost gotten used to the funny boxes... oh well.

Livre sends her a mobile phone back with instructions on how to use it, and Andy gleefully changes her communication to something text-based again. She still calls every once in a while. Yusuf and Nicolò would just be sad, otherwise.

All the while, the others are still going on missions.

Nico and Joe keep her posted about their successes, Livre texting her a quick run-down of where they went and why.

Andromache knows they don't just do it to keep her informed. They want her to join them again.

She's just not sure whether she is ready for that yet.

One day, Nico asks her whether she wants to join them in a milkrun mission against a drug cartel.

She surprises herself when she accepts… But her search for Quynh is not going anywhere anyway and she does miss the others a little.

Living on her own gives her freedom, but always being alone doesn’t feel like _her_.

Maybe should tell others about Quynh now, about the _switches_. Maybe they would even come to help her again…

And they don't deserve to feel the pain of grief, not when it is so unnecessary, not when she is still out there.

It hasn’t occured to her before, when she herself had been half mad with grief and then relief.

But now- she’s afraid they would just say she’s insane.

Afraid they’d make her believe it.

Apart from during and right after the experiences, it’s hard for her to really trust that it is truly happening as it is. And Yusuf and Nicolò have each other, they’ll be alright. Booker never knew Quynh anyway.

No, she’ll keep the truth for herself, even when they meet again.

After an (only slightly terrifying) experience in a gigantic commercial airplane (she was right, Livre’s forged passport holds up under close scrutiny), she meets the others in North America.

The last time she has been in this part of the world lays many years back, and cities sprouted up everywhere with skyscrapers even taller than the ones she has seen back in England.

Her memory reaches back far in time, and she doesn’t think she has ever seen a civilisation that built structures quite as enormous in such large quantity.

The big city of New York unnerves her. 

She feels tiny, like an ant about to be squashed in-between the skyscrapers.

At least, the people speak the same language in the US as they do in the UK- Andy picks up the local accent just to go on Livre’s nerves. _Booker_ , as Nico started calling him, and Andy gleefully adopts the nickname. It’s better than suddenly switching to Sébastien all the time, while ‘Livre’ is beginning to feel too formal.

Yusuf and Nicolò are known as Joe and Nicky, and Andy smiles when she realises how similar their chosen names are.

One time, Nicky asks Booker whether they can call him Ben. He gets a half-full bottle of wine to the head for his troubles (that man really has developed quite a drinking problem. And you have to drink a _lot_ to stay drunk as an immortal).

* * *

After that mission, they see more of each other. Andy never quite lives with them again, only visiting for missions- but they keep in touch more and more, the others always know how to reach her.

They still don’t visit her England flat, only meeting up in safe houses, and she is glad for it. Her flat is a much too obvious shrine to Quynh and her search for her.

Still, they keep in contact. They talk to each other.

Yusuf and Nicolò had been her family for centuries now, but now Andromache re-learns what it means to have friends.

Not just people to trust, but people to have fun with, too.

After one mission in Morocco, Nicolò buys baklava from five different stands of the market, saying he had to get so many because they are all different, actually, and he has to see which tastes best so he can try to make it himself, the one with honey or-

“Oh, they all taste the same” Booker grumbles. “Not that I don’t want one! Open the bag already.”

“They don’t taste the same, I could tell you which ingredients are different just from taste alone” Andy interrupts.

“Oh, I don’t think you can!” Nico exclaims. “They taste different, yes, but each flavor is so skilfully combined, you could never know-”

“I bet she can.” Booker grumbles.

“I bet she can’t!” Nicolò puts his hands on his hips.

Joe is watching the scene, quietly laughing to himself which turns into a full loud belly laugh when Andy guesses every single ingredient correctly.

It turns into a tradition of sorts, then: Nico will try to find the most complicated Baklava one can buy in the area, Booker bets him that Andy can guess it all, and usually, Andy does just that.

Nico doesn’t mind. It’s not like he has much use for the money.

* * *

Andy gets closer to Sébastien now, too, and talks to him about his grief.

She knows, of course, that he thinks they have a shared experience because he lost his family and he thinks that she lost the same in Quynh.

Andromache would feel bad about it, but she never outright lies to him, and she doesn't have to deceive him or fake her grief.

It is there, accumulated grief of millennia.

Of course, that is nothing quite so personal as a lost love of her life- although Quynh is, of course, still unattainable to her, which is a similar enough feeling.

When they don’t talk about such things, Booker shows her the newest inventions of the world, and Andy marvels in the 21st century technology of computers and smart-phones.

They really are _smart_ , those little things.

Terrifying, too, with their readily available cameras…

Andromache remembers how from time to time she used to allow an artist to paint a portrait of her, knowing that it would most likely be lost the next time she showed her face in that part of the world, and even if not people would think it a coincidence.

Now, she is afraid of even one photograph exposing their existence.

Still, she tries to focus on the positive and learn how to deal with the technology.

She doesn’t understand it half as well as Booker and she doesn’t feel the need to, but she can Google something, put tape over cameras, delete her browser history and delete pictures from a camera phone.

That’s all she needs to know.

* * *

Later, back in England, Andy leaves Quynh a Computer and instructions when they switch again.

Quynh is _very_ confused by this.

When she switches, she is faced with a strange black box.

Andromache left instructions about what the unbelievable machine is and which buttons do what and what she should do, but...

Quynh looks at the machine suspiciously.

There are no buttons visible… Is this some sort of prank? Anh used to love pranks, but she had not expected her to play one on her now, in this strange situation.

Finally, she figures out how to _open_ the laptop- and has a mirror in front of her.

Not real mirror, of course, just shiny black screen- still, Amdromache’s face is staring back at her, looking at the same time just as she remembers it and yet _wrong_ somehow, like she doesnt know how to express herself like An.

A mockery of a beloved face, with the wrong person in it.

Quickly, she hits the buttons until she finds the one that makes the screen light up.

Creepy.

Extremely creepy.

Yet somehow absolutely delightful, just like the pretty pictures in the magazines the last time she switched…

After Quynh tries searching for the titles of the magazines she finds discarded on a shelf as well as titles of plays she remembers from _before_ , even finding some of them, she is shaken by just how powerful this device is.

It seems to know _everything_.

Frozen, she stares at the screen.

Could this wondrous machine be her salvation?

Of course, if there had been any information on breaking from iron coffins on it, Andromache would have told her or tried to break free while she herself had been in Quynh's body.

Still, hope always dies last.

She searches for ways to destroy metal without tools in every language she can think of.

Looks up ways to break free when imprisoned or kidnapped.

Nothing quite applies to her situation.

And how could it? If any regular human had been in her situation, they would have just- died.

With a cry of frustration, Quynh snaps the machine shut.

Then she immediately opens it again.

She can't let Andromache see this.

Whatever happened to make her freak out in the past, what made her stop looking for Quynh-

If she _did_ stop looking.

Suddenly, Quynh remembers the way she had drowned in the ocean, not in her coffin... had that been An?

Either way, she won't remind her of it.

Quynh 'deletes' the browser history by just clicking on the 'back' error enough times and searching for fashion things again instead.

Now even if Andromache is interested in what she had been looking at, she will only find pretty things.

The last page Quynh opens is a fullscreen image of a leather jacket.

The thought of Andromache wearing it has her smile even as she feels reality twist around her and she is once again dragged away to drown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanfics aren't free, they're payed in kudos and comments! xD  
> sriously tho if you have a moment to let me know what you like about this fic I would really appreciate that :)  
> <3


	8. 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: Shared Passion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-14  
> You might have noticed that I'm really bad at sticking to a daily posting schedule... still, I'm probably updating more regularly this way than if I didn't set myself that goal, so there's that xD
> 
>  **Beware the change in rating!** If you don't want to read smut, you can just skip this chapter, there isn't really any relevant plot going on. I'll (hopefully xD) upload another T-rated chapter tomorrow, if you leave a comment I'll let you know when I update again :)  
> warnings in the end notes!

_2012_

Today is a good day.

Andromache seldomly feels this way, so when nothing bad happens to deter her good mood for several hours, she cherishes it.

Earlier today, she called Nico and Joe who are currently somewhere in Europe, enjoying a sunny vacation in-between missions.

She still prefers to text, or leave voice-messages that she can delete if she doesn't like them, but either way, she talked to the two lovebirds, and for once their constant happiness didn't manage to remind her of all that she was missing but rather just made her smile.

There are no bad news on the front page of the paper, it looks a politician she actually doesn't hate is going to win an election, she hasn't gotten news about any terroristic attacks in days... And the sun is shining brightly, which, in England, is always reason enough for a smile.

After a stroll through the neighbourhood, Andy takes ice-cream out of the otherwise empty freezer, eating straight from the tub with a smile on her face.

She flops onto bed and turns on the TV with the remote, quickly punching in the number for a music channel so she doesn't have to risk her mood being ruined by hearing any bad news after all.

The world can take care of itself for a minute, and if it isn't literally the city she's in that's burning down, she doesn't care.

As she lays back in bed and closes her eyes, still seeing the bright flashing lights of the telly flicker by, she sighs in relaxation and lets the spoon fall into the tub.

Almost without thinking, her hands move downwards, slipping under the waistband of her trousers.

She finds herself already slightly wet and drags one finger through her folds and back up to her clit, slowly playing with it.

She doesn't think about anything, just basking in the feeling, in the warmth.

Really, Andy never quite understood the modern obsession with porn. Nameless faces interest her even less than drawings of people she does know and is interested in.

Drawing circles around her clit, she barely notices that she is moving faster and faster, getting closer and closer until her hips lift off the mattress, pressing closer against her hand, her breath hitching and-

instead of finding her release, she feels a _shiver_ run through her that has nothing to do with her pleasure.

With a whimper of frustration, Andromache quickly withdraws her hand from her trousers.

While she wouldn't mind it if Quynh chose to continues this- in fact, she hopes that the other woman knows that she still has blanket permission to touch Andromache however way she likes- the thought of her waking up to be touching herself doesn't quite sit right with her.

Before she can think about it any longer, she is whisked away into the darkness of the sea.

* * *

When Quynh wakes up, she comes face to face with _strangers in a box_.

Loudly singing tiny strangers in a box.

It takes her a moment to realise that no, just like in the magazines and in the 'computer' Andromache had left her before, these people aren't really there. They're just talking pictures. Moving, singing, screeching pictures...

Right as she thinks that, the video changes to a slower song, and Quynh relaxes a little.

Now that she isn't frozen in fear anymore, she looks around the room, shifting on the bed to get a better look at the papers on the bedside table- before she freezes yet again.

She- Andy- is _wet_.

Her hand is slick too, Andy had clearly been touching herself just now.

A whimper escapes her throat.

Squeezing herself through the tight trousers, wishing she was wearing a skirt instead so she could touch herself more easily, Quynh starts to fight with the strange buttons before getting it to open.

Just as she is about to take it off, she then eyes the TV warily, choosing to hide under the covers before she shimmies out of the offending garment.

Quynh's eyes flutter shut at her hand's first contact to her now bare sex.

She hopes Andy won't mind her doing this. She doesn't think she would, or else she wouldn't have started this- but now that she is touching herself, she doesn't think she could make herself stop.

Two fingers slip inside easily, and she moves them in rhythmic motions, trying to chase her pleasure.

It does feel nice, but not really _enough_ -

Then, she remembers that Andy always preferred it when Quynh had her tongue on her clit, not fingers inside her the way she likes it best herself.

And this is Andy's body now...

Experimentally, Quynh rubs a fingertip over her clit, first gently, then harder.

Sparks fly behind her closed eyelids.

Whimpering again, she starts to move, trying to make this work, to _come_ again for the first time in centuries, even while caught in the wrong body.

As she feels herself getting closer, Quynh enters herself again with fingers of her left hand while she keeps rubbing her clit with her right middle finger.

The double stimulation, the mix of what she knows always feels good to her and what does feel good to this body is almost too much, yet barely enough-

A soft sigh escapes her, and then her climaxes crashes through her, making her feel like flying.

* * *

When Andy comes back to herself, she is still wet.

In fact, she is slammed into her body with her own fingers deep inside herself, her other hand now limb next to her, and it feels second nature to touch herself again, but she struggles to get out from underneath the blanket first, gasping for air.

With the distraction out of way, her fingers fly back to her clit, and she is moving her other hand inside of her- that kind of touch isn't usually doing much for he,r but the thought that it was _Quynh_ who had just been fucking her body moments ago-

She comes with a hoarse shout.

Withdrawing her hand, Andy notices blood on her fingers.

She hadn't cut her nails properly, not used to penetration herself and thus not feeling the need to do so without- without Quynh around.

Absentmindedly, she wipes her fingers on the covers of the bed. She is feeling light-headed, woozy.

 _It'll heal_ , she thinks before she passes out.

When she wakes up, Andy's throat feels raw and she quickly gets up to find something to drink.

As she starts walking, she notices that she is still feeling somewhat sore in other places, too...

Still.

 _Worth it_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: masturbation, slight dubcon due to masturbating in sb else's body w/o express permission...  
> also definitely forgotten and long melted ice-cream that shall not be mentioned again xD
> 
> Hope you liked this rather unique attempt at smut!  
> Btw did you read the comics before you watched the film, the other way around, or did you just watch the movie? I rarely read comics myself because I tend to read the dialogue etc too quickly and end up skipping over the images without really appreciating them or getting into the story :/ but after liking the movie so much I did have a look of some of the TOG comics, and they are really cool!


	9. 2013-2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy switches with Quynh again in autumn of 2014 and twice in 2015.
> 
> Each time is happening closer in time to the last, she stays away longer than the last, and the aftermath is getting worse every time, too.
> 
> Andromache doesn't want to think about it.
> 
> Thinking about it, like it's some sort of problem, would indicate that it's a problem to be solved and whatever is happening to her, she still doesn't want to stop the switches.
> 
> Not if it helps Quynh.
> 
> _Just you and me. Until the end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-15  
> THX SO MUCH FOR OVER 100 KUDOS AND THE MANY COMMENTS TOO!!!
> 
> I had actually planned for Quynh to maybe find out that the others think she's dead, and for Andy to have another What If She's really Dead And I'm Just Insane freak-out in this chapter, but somehow what I ended up writing is... Not that xD anyways, it still fits into the general storyline! 

_2013-2015_

Andy is so incredibly _done_ with the world.

She has tried again and again to find Quynh, has actually made it to the bottom of the ocean now.

Around England, it’s not even that deep- what once seemed impossible now easily doable with legally if sketchily obtained military grade submarines…

Goodness, there are other submarines that made it a hundred times deeper than the ocean in the areas Quynh is most likely to be.

Still, she hasn’t found her.

Getting down there is no longer the problem- finding the correct place is.

Kilometres upon kilometres of space.

Metal detectors are useless, too, with how much _trash_ humans have thrown into the ocean in the recent past.

It feels like every invention, every bit of progress on this planet, is made null and void by people being complete and utter arseholes.

And there are so many of those.

What has Andy’s mood down even more is the fact that, when going on missions with the team, she has to deal with the bad guys- people who are plain _evil-_ on a daily basis.

Not only that, but their missions all seem to be so _useless_.

There are no longer wars to be won on a single battlefield, only lone terrorists to stop while five others do their thing elsewhere, criminals to detain and crimes to stop that are so vile they are new even to Andromache.

She keeps fighting for humanity, but humanity has yet to prove that it is worth fighting for.

* * *

After she switches with Quynh again in 2014, she decides that she has had enough.

She feels so exhausted, mentally, physically...

The post-switch fatigue is worse than the last time, but she decidedly ignores this.

Maybe she just needs to make sure not to die immediately after a switch. If that happened, she thinks she might really not wake up anymore.

It's not like she wanted to go on tomorrow's mission anyway.

For over a year, Andy sticks to herself.

She's set on ignoring the missions and the team and the rest of humanity, only focusing on herself and getting to Quynh.

Even Yusuf and Nicolò barely hear from her, Andromache unable to handle their cheerfulness when she is feeling so down.

When she texts Booker in-between dives, it’s only to commiserate about how there are no good things to live for (later, she will curse herself for that).

At the moment, she has a single focus: she needs to find Quynh, the one person she can count on being Good. The one person she really _loves_.

Alright, that isn’t fair on the rest of the team, but at the moment she only associates them with misery.

_She still doesn’t find her._

After month spent like this, Andy goes travelling to clear her mind.

From England, she takes a ferry to France, then a train through Belgium, Germany and Poland with stops along the way, staying a few days in whatever city catches her interest, never planning ahead.

It's freeing, travelling alone and without a mission or goal in mind.

In Russia, she finds a coat in a cut Nico used to like when they last lived there together.

Searching a post office, she sends it to their safe house in Canada where the men will probably find it sooner or later.

When, in Mongolia, she finds an antique booklet on the craft of making paint-brushes, she notices that her mind always seeks out things to get for her family... she does miss them, no matter how much she enjoys her freedom.

She puts the little book into her pocket, wanting to give it to Yusuf personally when she next sees him... And it is small enough to carry around.

After that, she turns back around to travel home, planning to go through China, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, France, Spain...

She stays clear of the regions she knows best as well as the ones Quynh grew up in.

On the way through Gansu, she switches, once again, with Quynh.

Coming back to live with a gasp, she comes face to face with a salesman of fruits and vegetables who had apparently been talking to Quynh and is now looking at her with apparent concern.

Feigning a smile, Andromache buys enough healthy food that it should appease Quynh (not that she would know) and hurries away.

Before she can leave the market, however, the stand of a metal worker catches her eye- the woman is selling beautiful silver combs, quite like one Quynh used to own.

Andy doesn't remember whether that comb had been lost to time or is still lying in a safe house somewhere, but she buys the replacement nonetheless.

Travelling through the beautiful mountains of Zhangye, the only beauty she can think of is Quynh's smile.

A few months later in Spain, Andy gets Livre a first edition of Don Quixote from a man who thinks she must be the daughter or granddaughter of someone he knew (she doesn't remember him, but that might be because she met too many people to remember them all), because according to Joe Booker quite lives up to his name, having started a collection of old books and first editions.

It feels fitting: now she has gotten a souvenir for everyone. 

(She didn't get anything for herself. But maybe the time away was everything she needed.) 

* * *

Meanwhile, through the fog of pain and rage and constant death on her mind, Quynh notices the metal holding her captive is getting brittle.

Rusty.

She thinks she might have noticed the rust a while ago already, but now it's more than that, now it starts to _give_!

She still can't get free, but maybe- _maybe, some day-_

Each death doesn't seem quite so desperate anymore.

She has hope again, underneath all the pain.

* * *

When Andy is sitting at her table back in her flat in England, crossing out parts of her maps of the sea to show where she has already checked and despairing about the fact that even that doesn’t mean much when the metal coffin and Quynh in it could have moved who knows how far in the meantime through currents or other forces of nature-

She switches with Quynh again. 

In November of 2015, back in her little flat in England, Andy spits blood all over the magazine in her hands when she comes back to her body.

_At least that will be easy to replace, it's lucky Quynh was holding that and not the maps,_ she thinks before it really sinks in.

About what it means: her immortality for Quynh’s freedom.

The switches don't just lessen her immortality, they appear to be actively _killing_ her now.

Sooner or later it will happen.

Still, she would always do it again if given the choice.

She just hopes that it doesn't affect Quynh this way, too- while not much would be a worse fate than what Quynh is already suffering, she still doesn't want her to actually die.

Then again, maybe death would be better than eternal drowning.

But as she thinks that, Andy remembers what had happened when she had just been in Quynh's body, apart from her drowning, over and over again:

_The metal coffin is rusting!_

She had forced herself to stay lucid through death upon death, pushing against the cage, trying to break off parts of metal around the face hole.

Quynh isn't free yet, but there are small chunks of metal missing and she thinks she felt the metal move more than usual when she punshed it-

before she ended up back in her own body.

Now, looking at the blood she coughed up feels daunting, terrifying. 

It would be terrible to die _just_ before Quynh can finally get out.

She has to, needs to, meet her again before that can happen.

Dragging a still-bloody hand through her hair, Andy forces herself to breathe more slowly.

She _will_ see Quynh again some day.

If she says it often enough, maybe she is going to believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus AU scene, what if the last switch had happened while Andy is back with the team:
> 
> _Andy wakes, gasping for breath as if she had run a marathon when her body not is excerted at all, and she ends up hyperventilating._  
>  _"Andy?" Yusuf's sleepy, concerned voice echoes through the room._  
>  _"Just- just a dream" Just a dream. And isn’t that a horrible thought? What if Quynh is really dead all along, the way the others believe? What if she only imagined all of this??_
> 
> Next up we're starting the movie timeline!!! Who's excited :D def me, who had to watch the film for a Third time to figure out the window in which Andy could've lost her immortality lmfao. For whoever cares to know or not, she does not appear to be harmed in the fight with Nile on the plane, so theoretically it could've been right after she healed from being stabbed by her xD not that that turned out to be relevant for how I ended up writing it lmfao
> 
> Btw slight SPOILER I guess but there will be NO (permanent obvs) major character death in this fic! I know I keep adding tags and stuff with each chapter bc I don't want to give stuff away too early but you can rest assured that won't be one of em


	10. 2016 (April, Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Booker calls her about a mission, Andy is desperate enough for a change that she accepts. We all know what happens next...
> 
> _Basically a run-down of the movie, Andy POV - I do not know what month the movie played in but given that I'm probably not even sticking to the year it's set in (is it supposed to be 2020? I sniff a lack of pandemic but I guess they didn't expect our cursed timeline either when they wrote it) so I Do Not Care. Google says the weather's nice in april in Marrakech, so there's that for accuracy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-17  
> I really Really did not mean for this turn out so long? I'm basically adding a +1 to the 'final' chaptercount each time I upload, not intentionally lmfao! But this 1k chapter turned into 4 yet again so I had to cut it if I wanted to get anything done to upload today xD
> 
> Anyways, **this is officially my most-commented on fic ever! Thx so much you guys <3<3<3**
> 
> From here on there are actual movie quotes in this fic, I own nothing!

_2016_

Back in England, Andy has yet to contact the other immortals or give Booker or Nicky the books she got them on her travels.

She just feels numb.

When Booker calls her at the end of March and asks her to join them on a mission- he even says 'please', Joe an Nicky must be listening in, he's not one to beg otherwise- Andy forces herself out of her stupor and gets travel ready instead.

Pushing a second set of cloths and a knife that will work well as a dagger into her backpack, she then fishes a pair of sunglasses from under a pile of socks.

They might have ended up there because she doesn't like them very much. While not really the case, she always has the feeling that the glasses are impairing her vision, and it's a horrid feeling to have to get used to sunlight again after wearing the shades for a while. Still she wears them to avoid easy recognition.

In Morocco, Andromache wanders through the nondescript alleys she is going to meet Booker in. The place has no significant to anyone who hadn't been there for a specific bar fight about three hundred years prior, so Joe picked it as a good meeting place, showing Sébastien where to go with the useful GPS on their phones that is all too dangerous to take to their safehouses, really... 

Just as Andy starts to wonder whether the man got lost, Booker shoots past her on a motorbike, smiling at her as he comes to a halt.

It seems to be an honest smile. Andy is glad that he seems to be doing better, good enough to joke around. She has to smile, too.

Booker likes the Don Quixote, too.

Morocco hasn’t changed much since Andromache last visited.

A smile curls her lips as she remembers Nico’s antics with the Baklava. She wonders whether he will have bought any again this time.

(She ignores all the memories of the time she spent in the same city with Quynh, many centuries past.)

“So, why are we here?”

Booker wants to work with an old contact again.

Andy _knows_ it’s a bad idea. One of the few hard rules she has followed for millennia, in fact. _They don't do repeats._ It's just too risky.

But… She’s so done caring.

She doesn’t have the energy necessary for an argument, for a fight.

She wants to go on a successful mission with her friends. and if they can do some good... 

"Andy" Booker says, and she just sighs. There is no fight left in her, and really, she trusts Booker's judgement.

"Joe and Nicky?" it shouldn't just be her decision, anyway. They're a team, right? She totally doesn't tell herself that because she doesn't have it in herself to decide things anymore.

They go to meet the others.

At the hotel, while Booker is checking in, Andy sees the news on a TV in the lobby.

She really hates modern technology sometimes. Yes, maybe humans had always been this _awful_ , she just didn't use to _notice_ when things had happened at the other side of the country, the other side of the continent- or the world.

Now, it's everywhere.

Everything.

All the time.

Who thought it was a good idea to let a forsaken news channel play in a hotel lobby? Wasn't it to be expected that there would just be death and destruction on it? This is supposed to be a family-friendly _Riad_ , and these videos will just disturb the kids.

...then again, they've probably all seen worse already in their little lives.

Andy is reminded of why she hates modern tech once again when a group of British tourists take a selfie, and she can't turn away quickly enough. 

At least, it is easy enough to make them pass over the phone.

People are so _trusting_ nowadays, despite the fucked-up world they live in.

Sometimes, she longs for that level of naiveté. 

They arrive at their hotel room, and Nicolò opens the door.

Andy hugs him, hard, before she then lets Joe whirl her around the room, laughing when he groans in delight at having her back as he lifts her from the floor- he’s probably the only person who would do that and not face her wrath.

Surrounded by her family, Andy feels like her smile is real again.

Nicky did get the Baklava.

Booker still wins the bet as always.

Joe laughs at Nicky, but it's all in good humour, and when he asks her whether she has missed them, Andy has to look down for a moment.

 _Yes_. Yes, she did.

Then, the conversation turns to the job.

They meet with Copley, get the information.

(He jokes that Booker hasn't aged a day. She doesn't think anything of it, then.)

After that, it turns into a shitshow really _really_ fast.

_A set up._

Andy is glad that she brought her axe along. Fighting with that kind of weapon always came most natural to her

So much blood on her hands.

Might as well make it close and personal.

When she sees the cameras, she whacks those with her axe, too.

* * *

Andy feels exhausted.

It might take _years_ until they take out everyone involved to get rid of the immediate threat, centuries before everyone involved and their children are gone, and she won’t have to worry about them anymore.

She just wants to _live!_

It feels like, for centuries now, all she ever did was survive.

She's so tired of it.

What did it get them? "We've done nothing!" 

Even if they had managed to save some kids, the world would still continue its collapse around them.

And at this point, she doesn't even care about it anymore.

"The world can burn for all I care"

The phantom pain of former bullet holes is making her skin crawl.

Maybe humans just weren’t made for immortality.

Just after she thinks that, of course, they dream of the new one. 

_US Military_ is Andy's first thought when she wakes up, categorising the stranger's death, clothes, demeanour, right before it really sinks in- what it means.

"No. No, no, no..."

A new immortal.

Andromache holds her head in her hands, willing it all to just be a dream, a nightmare she can wake up from.

Is it never going to end? 

How many others have to be cursed to their existence?

The others are still discussing who the stranger might be while Andy already knows all she needs to know.

"She's a marine."

Which is just great. Exactly what they need right now, they're already being hunted and now they also have to save another one from ending up as a lab rat for one of the worst militaries in the modern world.

"We're the ones that are out in the open!" Booker argues, firmly against searching for the woman.

"Not like her." That's Nicky, and Andy knows that he is right. 

The stranger is a sitting duck in the middle of a war zone. If her superiors haven't noticed that she is a zombie yet, they certainly will the next time she dies.

It's not that Andy wants to care about this woman.

She doesn't want to care about anyone anymore.

Still, she knows she needs to get her, or she won't sleep easily ever again.

And now that her decision is made, she can come up with logical reasons to back it, too: "If we're dreaming about her, she's also dreaming about us. That makes her a beacon straight to us."

That shuts Booker up. They all know they need to get her, whether they truly want to help the kid or not.

Andy tells the others to meet her at the safe house Charlie in France.

Before she leaves, Joe presses his drawing of the newest immortal into her hands.

Andy stares. She hadn't really focused on the kid's face in her dream, and really, her 'kid' assessment was wrong: "Jesus. She's just a baby."

Andy jumps out of the train without any further goodbye.

She doesn't care whether or not she dies as she falls, fairly certain that her immortality is stable at the moment, anyway.

Still, she lands without a scratch- years of experience making her move just the way she needs to.

The new one won't have any such experience yet.

Andy shakes her head, ignores her thoughts and starts walking.

She needs to be the one to get the new immortal. Needs to be the one to introduce her to this new reality, the good as well as the bad.

Even if it gets her into a goddamn marine camp...

Dragging the knocked-out girl with her, Andy gets out as quickly as she got in.

Passing their security had been easier than expected.

She hopes they at least taught the new kid _something_ apart from getting herself killed.

* * *

Nile _stabs_ her.

Despite only just having met her, Andy feels a little proud.

She can learn to like this child.

Love her, maybe, as a little sister.

She ignores the thoughts whispering that she might rather be like a daughter to her one day. That was a dream she shared with Quynh and not one she is ever going to realise alone.

"You want answers? Get back in the car." She doesn't tell the kid that they don't have all the answers, either.

The new one- Nile, Andy reminds herself, the kid has a name- keeps asking questions, and once they reach the plane of a contact of a contact, it just gets worse.

"Is this even _safe_?!"

Andy sighs. "Does it even matter?"

She doesn't tell her that she never really grew to like airplanes, herself. She just doesn't trust the machines. Cars, she got used to easily enough, more so because she learned to drive one early on. Planes, though...

Still, it _is_ true that doesn't matter whether they're flying this piece of junk or commercial. If it does crash, they'll be fine- and here, at least, she can chug a bottle of vodka without anyone telling her not to... she could, no doubt, also swipe whatever hard drugs the pilot is smuggling, but Andromache never got used to the way those make her mind all foggy. Alcohol is the safer bet.

"You said you were an army. how many?"

"Four."

"You're an army of four?"

Andy had meant four in addition to herself- including Quynh in the equation- but she doesn't correct the girl.

She's going to dream of Quynh sooner or later, anyway.

Hopefully.

Nile isn't ready to believe her yet.

To be honest, Andy hadn't expected her to.

Sitting down, she feigns sleep and waits for what the newbie is going to try next...

_Oh, this is going to be interesting._

Andromache lets the kid tie her up. Internally, she is smiling, already planning lessons on situational awareness, ready to react when Nile is going to try and use this situation as proof that she isn't one to talk...

Then, she frowns.

Oh, goodness, what is this kid thinking- not only is she tying her up with something she can easily disassemble with any of the weapons currently on her person, she is also only tying up one of her arms. She has a _lot_ to learn.

Well, what better time to start but now?

* * *

Once Nile accepts her fate and they finally make it to safe house Charlie without any further incidents, Andy is ready to hand her over to the rest of the team.

After saying hi to Joe and Booker and sneaking a sandwich off of Nico in the kitchen, Andy disappears into her old room in this safehouse, leaving the others to make their introductions.

Opening the door, she knows that it has been untouched since she had last been here- none of her indicators are out of place.

With a sigh, Andy lets herself fall onto the dusty mattress.

Before she can close her eyes, they fall on a framed pencil sketch on one of her bookcases.

 _Quynh_.

No matter how much money she could sell any of the other treasures stored away here for, none will ever be as precious, be as valuable to her as this.

The pencil sketch sits proudly in the middle of the shelf, just where Andromache can look at it best.

It is one of Yusuf's of course- he had never drawn her while they were still together, or if he had he hadn't kept the sketches- the ones he most cared about had always been of Nicolò.

A year after Quynh's capture, when they all started to realise that it would not be a quick and easy rescue mission at all, he had taken his time to acquire a thick parchment and pencils and then drawn her for Andromache from memory. 

As a gift to her.

Andy doesn't know whether he is aware of it, but she has kept it all these years, and it is one of the few things she made a copy of, dared to take a picture of, so it cannot get lost too easily.

She never wants to forget Quynh's face.

And while, if placed in her position, Yusuf might wax poetically of how he could never forget eyes as beautiful as his Nicolò’s, lips as expressive as the ones of his love- Andromache can't kid herself with such romantic notions, pretending like it is impossible to forget somebody's face just because you love them so much.

If you have lived as long as she did, you know better.

She had forgotten her mother's face first, then one by one the ones of her sisters. She doesn't even remember how many sisters there were, now, getting confused about the younger ones.

She forgot her own name long ago, sticking to one she had been given centuries after she had first died. That one isn't so bad, really- a name is just a name. An identity, as long as you have one at all you are fine.

But it is a good example of how time makes you forget everything, no matter how significant they seem to be.

Some things are worth remembering, even if they hurt.

Putting the picture up here had seemed fitting at the time. Quynh had even been here before- it used to be _their_ room, then, not just hers, and it was the first place in which Andromache had found memorabilia of Quynh after she had disappeared into the ocean- apart from her necklace, of course.

Those are in a box next to the drawing: a belt buckle, a glass quill, an almost perfectly star-shaped pebble found on a vacation by the ocean far away from where Quynh is now... and a small copper etching of a crest- Quynh's family sigil, a clan that has long since died out.

Andromache doesn't need to open the box to know that the things are there, so she doesn't. She does, however, get up and walk to the picture frame, just standing in front of it.

She wonders whether she is going to see her again.

Quynh's eyes seem sad. They always did- in this sketch, not in real life. Rarely ever in real life. Maybe Yusuf just hadn't known how to draw any happy people in his own misery.

As Andromache contemplates this, she feels a familiar shiver running down her spine.

With trembling fingers, she manages to open the small box in front of her before she is taken away.

Closing her eyes, she welcomes her time in the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now after writing this, I want to go back to Morocco! I was there on vacation (roadtrip) in 2018 and it was great :) 
> 
> Where have you guys travelled to- any trips you had to cancel because of the current state of the world, anywhere you want to go once it's back to normal again?


	11. 2016 (April, Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-18  
> It's [ TOG Femslash Fortnight](https://tog-femslashfortnight.tumblr.com/)! I won't be participating in the prompts because I'm terrible at writing for anything but my own inspiration, especially when I'm as stressed as I am right now, but I _will_ try to upload Andromaquynh stuff daily during this time, either in this fic or others should this one finally come to an end xD
> 
> Btw did yall's see that this is my Most Commented Fic and take that as a challenge? xD multiple comments by multiple people on one chapter! love you all to bits!!!
> 
> ~ Listening to LaFee, especially 'lieber Gott' as I write this, feels kinda fitting. ~

Quynh comes to, opens her eyes and ends up staring at a picture of herself.

She had almost forgotten that this is what she looks like.

For a split second, she thinks it's Andromache standing in front of her, having switched bodies with her and yet somehow being _there_.

How out of touch with reality do you have to be to see a picture of yourself, and not just not immediately recognise it as a picture, but also not to think that it is a mirror but that it is _someone else?_

Slowly shaking her head, Quynh looks around the room.

It looks- familiar. More so than the room in Andy's flat in England that she had visited the previous few times.

Had she been here before? 

_Before_ before?

Stroking over the stone walls, Quynh is hit with a sudden memory:

An old- _church_ , or castle, no it was a former church or monastery- somewhere in France, it had been abandoned centuries ago...

Are they still using it as a safehouse?

Turning around, to look at every side of the room, her eyes land on the bookcase again and the open little box next to the picture frame.

These are _her_ things. 

This used to be her toom- well, hers and Andromache's because they tended to bunk together even when they were too exhausted to do anything but sleep, and had converted Anh's room into a study of sorts whenever they had been in a safehouse that offered enough space.

The study would have been- might still be!- just down the hall...

Quynh shakes her head. She doesn't want to risk getting lost in the old building. 

Turning her attention back to the contents of the box, her fingers glide over the smooth metal of her family crest, and she lifts it up, looking at it in the light.

It hasn't been polished in a while, yet it still looks better than she would have expected after so long.

Voices in the hall make her still before she can go through the rest of the things, and she slowly edges to the door, crest in hand.

It is just Yusuf and Nicolò, but their voices are agitated, and Quynh wants to hear what they have to say. She has the feeling that Andromache would try to keep negative things from her right now.

Nicolò's quiet voice, echoes through the hall as he keeps walking, he is speaking in Italian: "You left the girl alone? You shouldn't have come after me, I am fine-" 

"The child is with Book, she will be alright... And I do not believe that you are fine. You left the kitchen rather suddenly..." Yusuf says as he catches up with him.

Quynh can just imagine how they are standing, Yusuf with his strong hands on Nico's arms... They had found a strong love only years after they had met each other, and their love only grew over time.

"I am fine, truly" Nicolò sighs. "I am just thinking... what can we tell her? You have seen how exhausted she is... and she wants answers, I know I wanted answers... and we have nothing but half-truths and pain-"

Excited, Quynh leans closer to the door, she doesn't want to miss a single word. There must be a new immortal! Not just Sébastien, but another one- a girl!

"...not just pain." Yusuf continues. "We have us. We have our long lives, and the good we do! We cannot die, it is a blessing not a curse."

"But we don't even have that, do we? Everybody dies when their time has come. We _can_ die, first Lykon who we never got to meet, then- then Quynh.."

Quynh drops the crest in her hand.

It would have almost fallen to the ground in a loud clatter, but she catches it with her foot at the last second, silently grabbing it again.

Yusuf sighs sadly outside of the room, there is a rustling of fabric as he pulls Nicolò into his arms.

They think she is dead.

They are _grieving_ for her.

She wants to scream 'but I'm here, I am right here- but she knows it isn't true.

Her body is at the bottom of the ocean, and apparently the reason only Andromache kept looking for her is that everyone else believes her to have died.

There's a ringing in her ears that doesn't seem to stop.

Noise outside again as Yusuf and Nicolò step away from their embrace.

"Should I finish dinner for you, Nico, if you need a moment?"

"No- no, it is fine. Go back to the others, make sure Booker isn't too negative around the new one..."

"Of course, mi amor. And it will be alright."

"I know, I know." Nico sighs. "I love you."

"I love you with my heart and soul, habibi." 

The sound of a gentle kiss, then steps disappearing in the distance.

Quynh continues to stand frozen behind of the door even after the men are gone.

They think she is dead.

The metal box in the ocean turned into a coffin, a casket of the dead.

Gone, forever.

Quynh sits down heavily on Andromache's mattress. 

_That is new_ , she idly thinks: they didn't used to have beds ready in their safehouses, not when they might not visit them again for decades and centuries where such things would just start to go all mouldy.

She wants to think about anything that isn't her being pronounced dead.

* * *

Andy comes back and grabs a handkerchief from the bedside table to cough into.

She doesn't have to look at it to know that it is bloody again.

At least nobody has seen it. Quynh seems to have stayed in the room, alone, maybe just looking at her things- the metal crest is still in her hands, and Andy forces herself to get up and stumble to the shelf and put it back into its box, closing it with a _snap_.

Everything feels blurry. She can't focus properly.

Feeling ready to collapse, Andy forces herself to stay upright. She can't faint right now- she doesn't know how long she had been gone, but Nico could call for dinner any second now.

Then, she does have to sit down as she remembers her time as Quynh. 

The metal will break soon, Quynh won't need saving from anyone, after all- doesn't need _her_ to get free anymore, either.

And she can't stop her own death. 

With how much worse it is getting every time... and with being hunted now... she doesn't even want to do the math to find out her odds of living long enough.

She _would_ like to meet Quynh again, of _course_ \- but maybe she will need to try and die happily in the knowledge that at least Quynh is going to live again.

Feeling a chill, Andy huddles into the blanket on her bed, and within moments she is asleep.

* * *

Nico calling from the kitchen wakes her a short while later.

_"Coming!"_

At least she _did_ wake, and he didn't have to come looking for her.

Quickly darting into the bathroom, Andy splashes water into her face.

 _"Get it together, Andromache,"_ she hisses at her reflection.

At dinner, Nile asks about their immortality.

Andy answers.

She tells her the truth, of course- about Lykon, at least.

No-one says anything about Quynh. Andy is glad. She is not at all sure whether she could have lied, not so soon after having switched with Quynh, not when her being alive is still so very, very true to her.

Nile hadn't mentioned dreaming of anyone else, but the first immortal dream might have been so confusing that she didn't recognise the sequence for what it was.

While the others go to bed, Andy stays in her armchair, forcing herself to stay awake.

She knows what will happen.

What _has_ to happen.

It feels unreal, thinking about how Quynh is drowning again _right now_ , at this very moment, after just having been in her room mere hours ago...

But it also means that Nile will dream about her.

The girl jerks awake with a loud gasp.

The others are confused, staring at her as she explains about her dream.

Andy doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t know how to face the others.

They had grieved for her- they, not her. She had only grieved for her freedom.

She walks to the window. Quynh is out there, somewhere far away.

_“Her name was Quynh.”_

Why is Nicky using the past tense? He has to understand that Quynh is alive, now.

Now she doesn’t have to pretend like she thinks that she is dead anymore.

She feels so confused.

She wants to leave the room and not ever hear this old story, yet at the same time doesn't want to miss a word of Nico and Joe's explanations.

Most of all, she doesn't want to miss anything Nile might have to say about Quynh.

Even if it is about her being furious and drowning and half-insane.

Maybe a part of her had never been quite convinced that Quynh is really alive, that she wasn’t just imagining her being there, didn’t just dream the drowning.

But Nile dreamt of her, Nile who has never met her, who hadn’t even known of her before.

_Quynh is alive._

Alive.

Alive, but drowning.

* * *

Andy doesn’t get a lot of time to contemplate all of this or talk to Nile properly before they get ambushed.

Nicky and Joe aren't there.

Booker’s chest is a bloody mess.

Andy clutches his head in pain when it doesn’t look like he is going to wake up.

She can’t deal with this. She is already so close to the breaking point, she _can’t_ handle losing someone today.

Booker wakes up.

Andy closes her eyes in relief, even though she realizes that maybe, he would have preferred to die.

No time to think.

She has a fight to win.

Destroying Copley's men one by one, she barely notices when she gets knifed in the shoulder, too focused on the battle.

There are more men coming, more to kill.

She doesn't remember ever counting her kills. Unrealistic to even try, and she doesn't want to make an estimate. 

Is this the curse of immortality? Taking lives?

Maybe Booker would get his wish if he just stopped killing people.

(She knows it doesn't work that way. She _has_ lived in peaceful times after all, believe it or not.)

_It doesn’t heal._

Maybe she should have noticed it before, but it takes arriving at the cave and getting a moment to breathe, for the adrenaline to stop flowing through her body, and that's when she really feels it.

Touching her shoulder and seeing the fresh blood on her fingertips, she knows that this is more than mere phantom pain.

Of course- the fight had been way too close in time to her switch with Quynh. But- shouldn't it still have healed by now, even if it didn't do so immediately?

Andy pales as the implications of this sink in.

She hadn't thought that she would have _this_ little time.

She has to get out of here.

Thoughts are ricocheting around in her mind.

 _Any_ of the bullets that came so close to her could have killed her.

She could have died in a car accident on the road.

_She feels so tired._

But she has to keep fighting- _can’t_ let Yusuf and Nicolò end up like Quynh.

At least she thinks she has a chance to get the men out sometime soon.

It's a terrifying thought, that she might not be able to guarantee to live long enough to get to them that anymore.

Quynh might be able to get out by herself soon, but it still took several centuries for that to happen, and there is no-one supervising her.

She _has_ to get Nico and Joe. Can't lock herself away to be safe.

She was made to fight, had always been a soldier.

And if this is really her time, if she is really meant to die now- she won't be able to stop it, anyway.

In town, Andy goes into a brightly-lit, probably also camera surveilled supermarket, searching for bandages.

How fucking much can those have changed over the years??

In the end, she just takes something of everything. She will figure this out.

"Do you have a bathroom?" she asks the woman- just a girl, really, maybe younger than Nile and decorated with too-thick make-up and piercings- at the counter.

It's not like she can go back to the safehouse to patch herself up. She can't tell Booker, he'd be jealous and wouldn't understand her pain, and she can't tell the newbie, she'd just freak out.

Plus, both might think that Andy should sit this one out, and she can't do that.

"No." the girl answers

Well, she'll find something.

"…but we do have a storeroom?"

The goth kid helps patching her up. No questions asked.

Andy has made a certain observation before and only feels validated in it now: it is always the ones that don't quite look like they fit in with society that are most willing to help others.

The ones that needed help themselves in the past.

There is still good in humanity, as long as such people are around.

Andy _hates_ the pain.

Pain should be fleeting, ever changing, the way she is used to it.

This isn't it.

As she walks along the street, she takes it all in, focused on her surroundings in a way she hasn't been in a while, looking at it as if she was seeing it for the first time.

Humanity has changed so much.

Andy always kind of hated the way the last few centuries shaped the world.

Now, she hates that she will never see how it will change and develop next.

The memory of Lykon's death flickers through her mind.

When will the others follow them, him and herself?

She wishes that she could believe in an afterlife, so she could believe in seeing Quynh again one day, find hope in that thought whether it would come true or not- but she can't.

* * *

Back at the safe house, Andy chooses to wait by the car. 

She still has Nile's smartphone and she hopes to catch her alone.

Booker would not approve of her handing it back.

"Your mom and brother?" Andy asks as the new kid comes outside, showing her the lock screen image.

"You have my phone!" Nile exclaims, ignoring her question.

Andy hands it over. No, she won't deny her that comfort. What the kid does or doesn't do with it is her thing.

Booker undoubtedly already warned her off of interacting with mortals, but Andy has also made positive experiences in the past...

"Where's your father?" she asks the girl instead of lingering on her own memories.

"Killed in action when I was eleven." Nile tells her, showing her a picture of her late father and then going on to tell her about how her mother fought for the children after the father's death.

Andy doesn't go into how the US military shitty, actually. She feels the need to give the girl something positive to hold onto, now that she might not have the time to talk about it all properly.

"You come from warriors." she tells her instead, levelly.

"Yeah. I do."

"I can't remember what my mother looked like. Or my sisters." Andy doesn't even know why she is telling her that. She never used to be so open with anyone she only just met. Maybe because the kid won't have much time to hold any knowledge over her head.

"Time steals it all away, I guess." Nile muses.

It's close enough to what Andromache has thought a lot of times, but instead of agreeing, she chuckles darkly.

"It's not what time steals... it's what it leaves behind. Things you can't forget."

She stares ahead with tears in her eyes. 

"I gave up searching for her." She won't manage to go back to searching her, now. Won't even be there to welcome her home. Quynh is going to be on her own.

"I made Quynh a promise and I broke it." Many promises, now. First that they were torn apart at all, now that she won't live long enough to save her.

"I'm getting Joe and Nicky back. Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes?"

"Yes." Nile can't know what she means by that, of course. That she would give her life for them so literally. 

Still, she seems to get the sentiment.

They follow Copley’s trail to his flat, take their guns, get ready to fight. 

Andy is a little sorry that this is going to be Nile’s introduction into their world, that she won’t have longer to adjust.

She hadn’t expected her to leave.

Maybe, she dimly thinks, it was a good thing that they used to take so long to find the others for the first time.

By the time they met, the new ones were desperate for company.

Nile doesn’t, can’t, think that way yet.

And she just killed someone for the first time, merely days ago.

Andy understands that pain all too well, even if she can't remember her first kill anymore.

* * *

Booker’s betrayal hurts more than the bullet wound ever could, even now that the injury doesn’t heal.

The way he apologizes barely registers in her mind.

He shot her.

He _betrayed_ her.

Betrayed them.

He made the one thing come true which they had all been so afraid of.

_Is he insane?_

Maybe, probably. She had known that he is depressed, of course. It seems that untreated depression without the out of suicide does a number on a person...

Stripped onto a medical bed in a literal comic-like bad guy’s lair, Andy stares at the ceiling and wonders whether _this is it._

Sure, they’re fixing her injuries.

But she is mortal now, she will age and die, and there is no-one who could save her before that happens.

Or so she thinks…

Until Nile comes to get them, literally guns blazing.

(She's even brought her her axe. Yes, this kid is definitely growing on her.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone got any movie or comic recs, similar to the old guard or just your favs?  
> My fav comics are the [Yoko Tsuno](https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Yoko-Tsuno) ones by Roger Leloup, and I think if you liked TOG you'll also like Birds of Prey (which is problematic bc they're both nominated for the [People's Choice Awards](https://pca.eonline.com/movies/the-movie-of-2020) and I never know what to vote for xD ended up mostly taking TOG for 'movie' and BOP for 'action movie'... and of course voting for Charlize Theron bc she's the best ever! (You can vote once a day).
> 
> Oh and if you have any happy ending! Andromaquynh ficrecs, written by you or others, or stories where Andromache regains her immortality, feel free to send them to me here or on tumblr: [@lilolilyr](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/) :)


	12. 2016 (April-July)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2016, part 3!  
> I know I pretty much skipped over the second half of the movie in barely a few sentences, but I mean it's just following the canon and if you want to you can watch the film in-between xD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-20  
> Stilll not the final chapter! Had to cut the chapter in half again bc it got long and timmme, yeah I know you've heard it from me before xD Hoping to upload the _actual_ final chapter tomorrow or thursday though.
> 
> Btw I just love that the comment to kudos ratio is 118:118 atm xD just cause it's neat that they're the same number
> 
> tw: blood, throwing up

They exile Booker for a hundred years.

Andromache knows that if the situation had been different, this would feel just right to her, knowing that they all need time to forget and forgive, and Sébastien deserves what he gets.

If thinks had been different, she might have walked away without a kind word of goodbye, ready to see him again once his penance is over.

But now... she might not have that kind of time.

"I'm gonna miss you."

She hugs him tightly. He doesn't deserve this, but still- she can't bring herself to hate him.

He did the wrong thing, but she understands where he was coming from.

Oh, she will miss their shared misery.

Maybe it will be good for both of them to be apart, less opportunity to stir up and support each other's vile and depressing thoughts.

Still...

As he holds her close, Andy knows Booker is thinking the same thing as herself: that this might be the last time they ever meet.

The team had been shocked when they saw her mortality, no-one more so than Booker.

Yusuf and Nicolò are more ready to accept that when it is somebody's time, there is nothing you can do about it... and their belief in a higher power is probably also helpful

Booker doesn't believe in a god, at least not a benevolent one.

Nile, the youngest, not yet taking their immortality for granted anyways, was just shocked that the mighty Andromache is so breakable now- and still so ready to fight.

After saying goodbye to Sébastien, Andy leaves with the others.

They have a meeting with James Copley to get to.

In Copley's flat, Andromache learns about all their good deeds, and what they meant for the world- and those are just the ones of the last few centuries.

Nile had already hinted at this before, but Andy hadn't quite comprehended just how much of an impact she has made on the world before she is standing in front of the legacy wall herself.

Maybe, they really do have a purpose.

She just can't believe Quynh's is to drown.

More likely is that this is just coincidence, and Copley finding exactly what he is looking for: the good things.

Andy remembers reading somewhere that every person on this planet is connected to every other person by only six people in-between. 

Of course the ones she saved would be thus connected to future geniuses and world leaders.

Doesn't mean they're not also connected to murderers and the like.

Still, it is nice to see all the positive compiled in one place.

They make Copley part of the team, so he will be able to ensure that no other mortals catch up on them.

Of course it's a temporary solution, given his own mortality- but it's better than nothing, and- and Andy finds it hard to plan too far ahead at the moment, anyway.

She could die at any moment.

The bandage on the slowly healing bullet wound is a painful reminder.

"Did you already know that you were mortal before...?" Nile had asked her as they had driven away from Merrick's building.

Andy had just stared ahead, remembering their conversation from the day before.

"Whatever it takes, right?"

"Oh- then, already?" Nile had mumbled, no doubt thinking about the same conversation.

Andy had just stared out of the window.

* * *

They pack everything they needed from safe house Charlie before they abandon it for good.

Andromache is sad to leave the place. It holds so many memories. But even with all of Merrick's men dead, she won't risk anyone catching wind of this location after the chaos that had taken place there.

Nile and Nicky have fun cleaning the hallways with bleach to get rid of any DNA evidence. Water-pistols might be involved.

Andy just shakes her head and gently stores the box of Quynh's things in the trunk of her car, together with the framed drawing and a few clothes.

Together, they move into a new place. Well, not new, the safe-house in Greece had been one of Nico and Yusuf's vacation homes for quite a while now.

In fact, it is the same one they had stayed in before they dreamed of Booker.

Andy moves in with them without thinking twice about it. She still has her place in London, she still pays rent to it and she thinks she will return to it before her time is entirely up, but for now, she is happy to stay with her family.

The morning after they moved in, Yusuf catches her alone in the hallway and asks when she will be leaving to look for Quynh and whether they should accompany her.

Andy feels chilled. Of course- he, and Nicky, too, would expect her to drop everything and go searching again now that she has 'found out' about her still being alive.

"I haven't made any plans yet" she answers honestly enough. "I'll let you know."

Maybe she should search for Quynh again. But she only has so long to live, so much she still wants to do- and she doesn't think that she will find her, anyway.

No, Quynh will manage to get free on her own.

Andromache can just hope that she will still be alive to see it happen.

She supposes she could tell the others about the switches now... But she doesn't feel like spending the rest of her life explaining, or them worrying about what might happen should they switch again.

When they switch again.

* * *

Now that everyone is safe again, they slowly return to a new normal.

While the others mostly stay at the beach house, Andromache disappears for days or weeks at a time, 'searching for Quynh'.

In reality, she spends her time re-visiting the places she wants to see again before she dies...

And more often than not, she is staying in her flat in England, writing letters upon letters to Quynh, telling her all she needs to know about this new world, telling her all about Booker and about Nile, and, after drinking half a bottle of wine that is affecting her a lot more than an entire bottle of vodka used to when she had still been immortal, also telling her that she misses her, that she isn't sure she will live long enough to see her again, that she hopes Quynh will be able to get over her after her death, that she will actually live again once she is free from the ocean.

She doesn't tell her that it is through the switches that she became mortal.

She wouldn't want Quynh to carry that guilt.

When they are all at the safehouse together, Andy, Joe and Nicky teach Nile all they know.

Especially Andy feels the need to pass on her knowledge as quickly as possible.

There are so many things no-one but her knows anymore.

Somehow, the thought of the lost knowledge is almost as terrifying a thought as the one of her own death.

She shouldn't even care about it. Doesn't want to care about what happens after she is gone. And yet...

She instructs Nile in fencing and sword-fighting and hand to hand while Nicky teaches math and the use of different firearms and Yusuf shows her the art of map-making and politics. They all teach history and different forms of martial arts.

The men offer to give Nile most of her combat lessons, but Andy adamantly refuses to step back...

Even though she has to admit that teaching hand-to-hand combat is hard when you can be hurt so easily.

How do mortals _do_ it?

Sure, she is mortal herself now, but in her mind Andromache still doesn't put herself in the same category as 'regular' mortals.

She lived in immortality for so long- it's what she is!

Even now, when she is so fragile herself.

She is used to practice sessions that end- no, don't even end with, but encompass dislocated joints and already-healing bruises.

It's hard to remember to take it easy when you are used to practice fights that sometimes would end in death.

Still, she teaches Nile, and it helps that Nile herself isn't so used to immortality yet, that she won't thoughtlessly kill Andy the way Yusuf or Nico might- which is why they absolutely refuse to spar with her, now.

Nile decided not to contact her family again.

Andy knows, though, that she has used a pre-paid phone to call her mother's flat and listen to her voice, playing a recording of someone else saying 'wrong number' before hanging up, at least once.

Maybe it's the kind of closure she needs, knowing that for the moment, her family is still out there, even if they are not _her_ family any longer.

Andromache is determined to make the safehouse feel like home, the immortals feel like a second family to Nile.

In the evening, they sit on the patio together, telling stories of adventures long in the past and the people they met.

Sometimes, Nile can't quite believe that they really knew whichever person ended up being famous later in life- other times, she can't comprehend how they have no idea that some important historical event was going on while they happened to be on a completely different continent.

It's fun- domestic, relaxing.

Sometimes they have a bonfire on the beach, sometimes they go for a midnight swim.

Andy wishes that she could enjoy this easy familiarity between them for many centuries yet to come.

She wishes Quynh were here with them.

* * *

In unspoken agreement, the team doesn't go on any mission for the time being.

Copley still has enough on his hands erasing them from video footage accumulated over decades and building up proper identities for them that will hold even under government inspection.

Andy doesn't know when the others will want to go on missions again. Maybe they're waiting for her bullet wound to heal properly, maybe they all just need a break.

What she does know is that she won't be the one to start that conversation.

She doesn't know whether she would join them,

The problem is that she is torn: on the other hand, she doesn't want her mortality to stop her from doing whatever she wants to do, and she knows that if she did go on missions, she would not be able to stand back behind the others- but on the other hand, she really, really wants to be as careful as possible so she will have a chance at meeting Quynh again.

In June, Andy knows that it can't be long before she will switch with Quynh again. 

She isn't sure whether she will survive it.

Staring out of the window of the safehouse, idly moving a knife back and forth between her hands, she wonders whether she should stay here with the team so they can take care of her if something happens- but then they would know why she is mortal, and later they could tell Quynh...

In the end, she opts to go to England instead, telling them she needs to check on her flat

She does put an automatic emergency alert on her phone that will send for an ambulance should she not manage to disable it in time.

Maybe it isn't healthy to hide from everyone to lick her wounds like an anxious little cat, but she can't bring herself to care.

On her way to England, she travels through France to look for Booker.

She doesn't tell him that she is here- a meeting wouldn't go well, she's still too mad at him for that, and honestly, if she dies without him having seen her again, maybe he would deserve it.

Watching from the shadows as Book makes his way to a liquor store, Andy rolls her eyes.

She really hopes he develops a few healthier coping mechanisms than alcoholism in the next ninety-nine years.

Back in her flat, she has to wait for several weeks before anything happens.

By the time she feels the shiver announcing the switch, it is well into July.

* * *

Quynh wakes up to darkness and _pain_.

 _'This is wrong'_ she whispers, and the fact that her voice isn't hoarse when she had just spent an eternity screaming underwater is somehow still a surprise to her.

She is Andromache now, and she is in pain.

That _is_ wrong.

In the past, she had always either been in pain or been in Anh's body- never both.

Frantically feeling about the bed for something to make a light with, she finally remembers the lighswitches, slowly moving along the wall until she finds one and has to blink against the sudden brightness.

Looking around, she sees the now familiar environment of Andromache's flat.

Reassured that she is alone, Quynh pulls the shirt she is wearing over her head- and promptly freezes.

There is an angry red scar on Andromache's abdomen, fresh pink-red skin stretching over a recently healed wound.

It just stays there, it doesn't disappear before her eyes.

The pain stays the same, too.

Quynh is terrified.

While the wound must have been bad, it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary for Andromache, there is no reason for it not to heal...

Except if she is mortal.

But it's _Andromache_ , she _can't_ be mortal!

Really, Quynh already recognised Anh not just by this being her flat but also by her body, her hands, the shape of her torso... Still, she has to be certain and finds herself searching for a mirror until she can make sure it is really Andromache's face looking back at her.

When she looks at her reflection, she starts to cry.

After the initial shock has passed, Quynh starts to look through the flat, searching for an explanation, hoping for one that gives a different reason than mortality. 

What she finds are piles upon piles of papers which are neither maps of the sea nor research for future missions: instead, they are letters addressed to her.

Letters that read more like a last will and testament than regular written communication.

Quynh puts them away and steps back as if burned.

Andy is still alive! Quynh feels like she shouldn't be reading this, like she is intruding... And she can't stop the thought at the back of her mind telling her that it is only a matter of time until there won't be an Andromache anyone whose privacy she could intrude on.

A loud noise makes her freeze.

Frantically looking around in alarm, she finally finds the source of it: a little black box, similar to the computer screen but much tinier.

When she picks it up, the noise stops, and Quynh quickly puts it down before she can break it or something.

What is this strange future?

Screaming boxes and a _mortal_ Andromache?

Her stomach grumbles.

Right- mortals have to eat to survive.

In the kitchen, Quynh looks through boxes with strange dry food before finally finding some greans and bread in a cold white box. Fridge. She doesn't remember when she learned that word.

There is meat, too, and Andromache probably needs the nutrients, but there is no fireplace in sight and Quynh doesn't want to burn down the house trying to make a meal.

Outside, the sun is rising, and Quynh turns off the inside light, going to the window to watch the first sunrays come up behind the tall houses of the city.

She wants to watch this with Andromache, not alone. Wants to ask her about every little detail she can see outside, every vehicle and house and technology, wants to point out funny-looking clouds to her and just enjoy the beuty of the sunrise together.

Knowing that she might never get to experience that now is terrifying.

When she has finished her meal, Quynh cleans and puts away the plate before wandering around the flat, looking at this place that Andromache has turned into a home. 

There are so many little details talking about the flat's inhabitant: the messy way clothes have been put away, the fact that there is a knife in a flowerpot, of all things- it will rust there, Anh!-, the plants themselves standing tall in the living room, the collection of books that doesn't seem to be in any particular order on the shelves...

Coming to a halt in the middle of the bedroom, Quynh hadn't even noticed the passing of time, but she must have been there for hours as the sun has now risen almost to the top of the sky.

When Quynh feels the shiver trying to drag her away, she quickly grabs a discarded piece of paper and a pen from the floor and scribbles:

_'wait for me'_

* * *

Andromache is drowning.

When she comes back to life, the fact that she, as Quynh, is still immortal, feels like a welcome reprieve from her mortal life- even though she is, again, drowning.

The third time she comes back to life, she forces herself to stay lucid, to focus on her surroundings, and slowly try to break the metal into pieces.

She focuses on the holes at the head of the coffin, where Quynh had already been working on and has managed to destroy the nose of the metal face, connecting the three little holes to one.

Anh breaks off more millimetres of metal, scratching at it, biting and clawing to tear it apart...

It's still not even enough enough space for a head to stick through, let alone a body.

But there _will_ be.

* * *

Andy comes to and coughes blood all over the floor.

The smell of it is nauseating, and she feels so faint... before she realises what is happening, she is falling, throwing up as her knees and ellbow hit the floor.

She can't tell whether she threw up blood, too, or whether the red on the floor is from coughing before that.

When the sharp smell of bile reaches her nostrils, Andy tries to hold her breath, stumbling and crawling to the bathroom.

Water. She needs water.

Dragging her mouth under the tab, she gulps down mouthfuls of water before sinking to the floor again, leaving the tab running. She can't be bothered to get up again.

Shivering, she takes stock of her situation. She still feels nauseous and weak, but apart from that she appears to be fine, and she isn't coughing blood anymore.

By the time the emergency alert starts blaring, she manages to drag herself back into the bedroom- not breathing as she passes the mess on the hallway floor- and disables the alarm with trembling hands before she goes to sleep.

When she wakes up, Andy doesn't know how much time has passed, but she feels better, only a little queasy and thirsty.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly stands up and goes to get cleaning supplies from the bathroom.

Wow, alright, this mess really looks bad.

Will the next time she switches be even worse? It's not like she can get even more mortal than mortal, right? And if she recovers from the switches every time...

But it happens closer in time to the last one every time, and once she doesn't get the time to recover in-between anymore...

No, she doesn't want to think about the 'what ifs' now.

Back in the bedroom, Andy is ready to lie down for another nap when she finds an torn off piece of paper in front of the bed.

'wait for me', it says in Quynh's new messy handwriting.

Andy shivers again. Yes, she intends to do just that. Her mind is made up now: if the team does go on missions again, she will stay behind.

She doesn't want to think about her mortality of have it control her life, but she doesn't have to take unnecessary risks, either...

Not while Quynh is still out there.

* * *

Back in the ocean, Quynh's last coherent thought before she drowns is that Anh did good work on the metal of the coffin.

The hole is almost round now, and when she comes back to live, Quynh goes back to ferociously clawing at it, fighting with the metal.

Solitary, painful, hopeless work.

Dying, fighting, dying.

She doesn't know how much time passes after that, but one day, she notices that she might be able to fit her head through the gap.

It's not enough to come free, but when she squishes her head through, staring into the darkness of the ocean, her efforts don't feel quite so hopeless anymore.

She _will_ get out of this coffin, and she _will_ get back to Andromache before it is too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who's still here? :D


	13. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT**  
>  You might want to read the final chapter before going through this!   
> I just didn't want the fact sheet to be the last chapter because I personally hate the disappointment of thinking there is another chapter and then it's just a long ass author's note xD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so this is just a quick interlude with all the facts that went into this fic and the timeline and such- don't worry, the next chapter is the actual last chapter, it should be up in a mo' if it isn't already by the time you are reading this :)

You might want to read the final chapter before going through this! **SPOILERS**!

I just didn't want the fact sheet to be the last chapter because I personally _hate_ the disappointment of thinking there is another chapter and then it's just a long ass author's note xD

**The switches, in: year, distance from last switch, duration and aftermath:**

1\. 1812 (147 years after Quynh had been taken) - about 10 minutes - Andy gets a headache and is tired

2\. 1893 - 81 years after the first switch - 13 minutes - bleeds longer than usual from a small injury

3\. 1945 - 47 years later - 17 minutes - _not mentioned in the story but it would still be exhaustion and slower healing factor_

4\. 1972 - 27 years later - 27 minutes - _not mentioned in the story but it would still be exhaustion and slower healing factor_

5\. 1988 - 16 years later - 29 minutes - tired, takes longer than usual to come back from a bullet-wound death even on the day after the switch 

6\. 1997 - 9 years later - 38 minutes - trouble focusing, exhaustion

7\. 2003 - 6 years later - 50 minutes - takes longer to comes back from a drowning-death

8\. 2007 - 4 years later - 1h05 - trouble focusing, exhaustion, sleeps for days

9\. 2010 - 3 years later - 1h25 - _not mentioned in the story but would still be trouble focusing, severe exhaustion and a slower healing factor_

10\. June 2012 - 2 years (24 months) later - 1h51 - sleeps for days, not healing until after she wakes up again

11\. August 2014 - 14 months later - 2h24 - worse fatigue than before

12\. May 2015 - 9 months later - 3h07 - _not mentioned in the story but be even worse fatigue than before and a slower healing factor for days afterwards_

13\. November 2015 - 6 months later - 4h03 - spits blood

14\. April 2016 - 4 months later - 5h16 - bleeding, not healing any quicker than any mortal human would

15\. July 2016 - 3 months later - 6h51 - blood and nausea

16\. September 2016 - 2 months later - _cut short_ \- :) 

The pseudo math I used for this was basically 

For the time distance inbetween, at first it's [last distance] : 2 + ([result] : 10) 

...then when it's less than 50 years it's :7 instead of :10 and when it's in months its :5... logic much xD I also always added to the result until I had a full number instead of rounding properly.

The only reason it got so complicated is basically that I had the starting year and the final year given and I knew approx how far the first switches and the last switches were supposed to be apart, and it all had to _match_ and ahh I do not like math! Just did trial and error until it kinda fit, probably 'easier' ways to do them but my dyscalculia brain Would Not Comprehend!

For the duration of the switches, it's the duration of the last switch * 1,3, which was easier to come up with both due to already kinda knowing what I was foing and also not rly caring too much how long the later switches would take as long as it was kinda in the hours long range.

The idea or logic behind the switches is basically just me going 'when they can dream of each other and it stops when they meet why can't we have the same with body swapping' and then I just didn't question it xD

Andy and Quynh are, of course, the ones switching because of their 'just you and me - until the end' spiel right before they're torn apart, Andy suffering from them by giving the energy necessary for the switches because she is the one feeling guilty for Quynh's fate...

Magic be magicky, don't question it folks!

Did the last switch very conveniently happen right after they met again- maybe? If you want more logic just imagine that it's a few nights later lmfao

Whether Andy would have died if Quynh hadn't gotten to her before the latest switch is left up for interpretation in the story on purpose, but because I don't even like the thought of possibly unhappy endings I like to believe that she could have made it through at least some more switches, so it wasn't that much of a close call... and because she still never 'really' lost her immortality the way Lykon had but was only weakened by giving the energy for the switching... So maybe she would've just fallen into a coma or looked dead but woken up as soon as Quynh did find her :)

I have no idea how many hours I spent on this in total- often worked on it for a few minutes while I took a break from my bachelor thesis, but also spent hours on it every evening since I started writing it, soo with research and everything I'm guessing 20+ hours? Rly just an estimate! Now I'm curious, Maybe the next time I write something like this I'll time it... then again usually I don't know that sth is gonna turn into a monsterproject when I'm just starting to write it xD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmk what you think of my insanely thought-through fanfic! Usually I just write whatever comes to my mind without thinking twice about it, so this was quite a ride!


	14. 2016 (August-September)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~ f i n a l e ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-10-22/23 (midnight here)  
> Thank you so so much to everyone who stuck with this story from beginning to the end! You guys liking and commenting, asking questions and throwing in your own ideas has really kept me motivated to keep going and write this a lot quicker and more detailed than I usually would have! Seriously, thanks you guys <3
> 
> Listened to @lanternsandhardbacks on Youtube while I write this - even if you're not usually into the type of music you should still definitely check out the [Corona Lullaby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjuCjJZB9YA), it's creepy and wonderful and was a tumblr joint efford in writing that I enjoyed watching grow longer and longer and am exhilarated to listen to now xD  
> Apart from that I was also listening to the German Radio Show 'SWR1 Hitparade', a yearly thing where the 1000 most voted-for songs are played that I really like! [It's still going if you want to check it out!](https://www.radio.de/s/swr1bw) They even have a [video lifestream](https://www.swr.de/swr1/bw/hitparade/swr1-hitparade-livestream-100.html) from the studio :D
> 
> Only posting this today instead of yesterday bc I had quite a fibro pain flareup in my hand yesterday which made typing hard... and jeesh this turned into quite a monster of a chapter, over 5k I think! more than twice the length of any of the other chapters!!!
> 
> Have fun reading :)

When Andy returns to Greece, the others are in the middle of preparing for a misson Copley had suggested for them. 

It's an easy in-and-out, just getting the intel on a smuggling ring they can then pass on to actual law enforcement - a good mission to introduce Nile to what they are doing, Joe says.

Andy knows that part of the reason they chose an easy mission is herself, and she also knows that the others don't want her to go anyway.

Instead of joining their plans, demanding back her place as the leading force of any operation, she just nods and tells them that she will be there when they get back. 

If the others are surprised by her lack of protest, they don't say it.

In the evening, Nicky comes into her room to ask her to check the plan for them.

He sounds a little nervous, like he either thinks she's lost it for not wanting to come- or he thinks bringing up the topic might make her change her mind and come with them after all.

Andy just nods, joins them in the living room and goes over blueprints of building, as well as the team's strategy, adding on her own ideas and double-checking every angle, careful to always say 'you' instead of 'we' when she is talking about the mission to come.

The next day, Nicky, Joe and Nile are out of the house by sunrise.

Andy stays back, huddled up in her bed, pretending to still be asleep. If she got up to say goodbye, she'd feel ridiculous, like some soldier's wife kissing them goodbye on the cheeks as she says her farewells... No, that isn't her.

 _Nothing_ of this situation feels like her.

But it's better than dying prematurely. 

Rolling over after she hears the front door snap shut, she fishes her phone from the bedside table.

It looks a bit banged up- after both Copley and Nile had yet again told her actual horror stories of which apps use the camera or collect location data and all the things she needs to click to make them stop, Andy decided that putting tape over the camera wasn't enough, and instead she took the entire godforsaken machine apart, ripped out the camera and the gps thingy and put it together again. 

Yes, the phone still works.

Alright, so she needed a new screen and it still flickers sometimes, but it _works_.

Going through Copley's e-mails which she usually always ignores (he knows to text Nicky or Nile if it's urgent), she slowly makes her way through the flat, getting a cup of coffee from the almost-empty pot and sitting down, all alone, on the kitchen table.

She has never felt more like a senior citizen than than right now, not even when she had gotten frustrated one evening because she had known neither the movies Nile wanted to watch nor the games or whatever they are based on.

Putting the coffee cup down a little harshly, she ignores the spill and makes her way back to her room.

She still needs to look through most of the things she had taken from Val d'Oise. Most of her old clothes are probably moth-eaten and should go into the dumbster, anyway.

All too soon, Andy finishes that task, too.

She needs something to _do_ , to move her hands.

When she has time to sit, she starts to think again - about Quynh, whether she would approve of her staying behind, about the team and the fact that she doesn't know how they are doing right now, that she wouldn't be able to help them if they got into trouble, wouldn't know if they got captured or one of them turned mortal...

More than anything, she itches to go out and fight. She has always been a fighter, and yes, irrational as it is, she still wants to protect the others, too.

Going outside, she shrugs out of her clothes and runs into the sea without looking back.

At first forcefully punching the water, she slowly lets go of her tension and starts a steady crawl.

It's peaceful, the focus on arms, legs, moving up to breathe, arms, legs, arms, legs, breathe...

After a while, she slows down, turning onto her back and letting herself drift. When she looks back to shore, she notices that she is quite far out already- nothing compared to what she has done in the past, of course, but maybe it would be clever not to overdo it, now.

 _Another reminder that I'm not as invincible as before_ , she grumbles to herself before she swims back.

Still, all in all she is feeling much better as she flops down on the beach, letting the sun slowly dry her wet body and hair.

When the rest of the team comes back hours later, Andy is sitting in her favorite armchair in the living room, paging through a well-read copy of Bram Stoker's _Dracula_.

Looking up, she sees the others covered in blood, their clothes torn to pieces.

Joe walks up to her and gives her a bear hug, hiding his face in her neck.

"Yusuf?" Andy asks him gently, holding him close.

"We all died." Nile whispers as she closes the door.

"We're all glad you stayed home, Andromache," Nico adds, walking up to them and putting a hand on Joe's and Andy's shoulder each, "there is no way you would have survived this."

Andy lifts an arm so Nicky can step closer and hug her too, and after a moment Nile also shuffles closer a little awkwardy until the others pull her into the group hug.

 _She would have died_. Rattled, Andromache doesn't even ask what exactly went wrong in the mission, she doesn't care to know. If it had been anything endangering their identities or this safehouse, they would have already told her.

"Go shower," she tells the others once they pull away from each other. "I'm making dinner. Yes, I am capable of that much!" She adds on, trying to lighten the mood and feeling like it was a success when Nico laughs and, in reply, tells her where to find the bread as she won't be able to burn that, before he slinks off to shower with Joe.

Andy rolls her eyes fondly and goes to set the table.

At dinner, they don't talk very much.

It's a sombre mood- death is never pretty, neither is a mission gone wrong, but especially the fact that there had been no getting out without getting shot while Andromache could have been killed by any single bullet had she come with them... the fear is still sitting deep for all of them.

It's also only the fifth time Nile has ever died, that Andy knows of- she took notice every time she dreamt of Quynh while they stayed in the same place. While for Andy, after millenia of immortality dying and coming back from it had been as normal as pulling a splinter from a little wound would be for a mortal- painful, annoying, yet not a big deal- she knows that to Nile, it still is a terrifying experience every time it happens, especially so in light of Andy's newfound mortality.

After putting away the food and deciding that the clean-up can wait until the morning, the four of them all huddle together in Yusuf and Nico's king-sized bed to sleep.

Nile doesn't dream of Quynh anymore.

In the night after the mission, Andy firmly expects to be woken by screams of a nightmare.

When nothing happens, she asks Nile the next morning, and the younger woman confirms that she hasn't dreamt of Quynh that night at all.

She, Yusuf and Nicolò aren't too concerned- after all, the dreams stopped for Booker too without anything changing for Quynh, and it hasn't been so long since Nile last dreamt of her, so they think she might still dream of her again.

Andy disagrees, though she keeps those thoughts to herself.

The dreams can't have stopped because it has been too long- it hasn't even been half a year yet. Nile also clearly never met Quynh, through Andy or not.

But- there is another possible reason for it.

She could just not be dying anymore.

Quynh could be _free_.

Why did it have to happen _now_ , just _after_ she switched with Quynh? Now she has no way of knowing whether Quynh is finally free or- or-

Andromache hopes beyond hope that Quynh is alright.

* * *

In the beginning of September, as the touristy season in Greece comes to an end and their presence there might be too memorable, they move to Toronto.

It is going to be Nile's place and she picked out the little house in Forest Hill, but she invites the entire team to stay for as long as they want, and they all come to join her.

It's far enough away from Chicago for Nile to be safe there, but it's still north America, most people speak English and the former Marine is a lot more comfortable there than she had been in Greece. 

Andy is just glad that she chose a house far enough away from the inner city and surrounded by enough trees for her to feel safe.

Maybe that's hypocricy, Andromache thinks while she puts away most of her clothes into the shared wardrobe in the 'guest room': after all, her flat in England is in the middle of the city, but for some reason, she always felt able to just disappear in the masses, there. Maybe it's because she had always been alone there and didn't have many or really any contacts in the city at all, and now she is living together with a group of people who manage to attract attention wherever they go.

On the next day, Andy had just taken a seat on the living room couch when the doorbell rings.

Nile jumps up from where she had huddled up in an armchair.

"I'll get it, is probably just the delivery guy!"

Officially, this safehouse just belongs to Nile- well, 'Neha Parker', as her ID says- and the others let her run it however she likes... even if that means ordering in, which Nicky still despises more often than not. 

"...Hello?" Nile's voice echoes through the hallway, her tone questioning and a little careful.

This immediatey has Andy on high alert. Maybe she has gotten paranoid in her old age, but after the chaos with Merrick... 

"Is Andromache here?"

Andy freezes.

 _Goodness_ , that voice. She would know this voice, the melodic accent in French- and any other language she speaks- immediately.

Everyone else stands frozen as well, one could hear pin drop in the room but Andromache barely notices, her attention solely focused on the woman at the front door.

Nile is the first to regain her bearings. "...Quynh?"

Quynh quietly chuckles in reply to her shock.

Andy gets up, stumbling as she makes her way through the room- only for Joe and Nicky to jump up and get inbetween her and her destination.

"Boss, no, what if-" Nico says at the same time that Yusuf urgently whispers: "She doesn't know that you are mortal!"

Right- the others think Quynh would be angry with her, for not managing to find her. That she might try to kill her in revenge, thinking that she would just walk away from it.

Andy supposes that it is a reasonable train of thought, but she doesn't want to take the time to explain to them on how many levels they are wrong.

She just wants to get to Quynh.

"Don't, Joe, Nicky."

And when the boss says that, they listen- although they stay right behind her, clearly ready to take Quynh down should she try anything.

Of course, it never comes to that.

Andy walks into the hallway, holding onto the living room doorway as she is suddenly feeling faint.

She sees Quynh standing behind Nile, her thin frame huddled in a big coat, her hair more disheveled than usual- then Nile takes a step to the side and when Quynh's eyes find her, they are still the same expressive dark brown that she had fallen in love with so many centuries ago.

Andromache feels tears forming in her eyes but she blinks them away, she hasn't seen Quynh in centuries and isn't about to let tears ruin her view of her love.

Quynh goes past Nile, who is throwing a questioning look at Yusuf and Nicolò behind Andy, but Andy herself ignores them all.

"Quynh."

Finally, right in front of her, close enough to touch- pulling her into her arms.

"Is she just... hugging her?" Andy hears Nile aske while she burrows her face in Quynh's shoulder.

Quynh's hands are in her hair and on her neck, but Andy isn't in the least afraid that she would try to snap it.

This is a lover's embrace.

More than that, even- two people who had shared their life for millenia and are finally together again.

She holds her close, arms around her waist, hands pressing against her ribs that are way too raw-boned under her shirt, then the small of her back. 

"Quynh" she breathes, and when she can hear again over her own screaming thoughts, she notices that Quynh is saying her name too, over and over again: " _Andromache_ , Andromache, Andromache..."

It feels unreal, to have her in her arms again after so long.

To really be in the same room together, Quynh alive and breathing at land in her own body, after she had thought that it might never happen while she is still alive.

It feels like a miracle, a dream come true.

Once they are over initial shock, Yusuf and Nicolo come over to greet her.

Andy doesn't let go of Quynh even for a moment, but she compromises by holding her hand while the others hug her, then hooking her chin over her shoulder while Quynh talks to them and gets introduced to Nile.

She doesn't pay much attention to the conversation, her focus solely on the woman in her arms.

Closing her eyes, Andy breathes in and snuggles against Quynh's neck.

Dimly, she is aware of the doorbell ringing again and Nile going to pay for the food delivery.

"Should we go sit down?" Joe asks but Andy stays in her little world that is just _Quynh_.

"...Anh?" Quynh's voice pulls her back to reality.

"Hm?" she presses a kiss to a bare bit of skin on her shoulder exposed from a slipping coat.

Quynh laughs, the most beautiful sound Andy has heard in centuries.

At the kitchen table, Quynh picks her way through the 'indian' take-away that Nile is excited to show her. She also makes Andy eat her share, clearly concerned for her health.

Andromache wishes she wasn't. It's reminding her of the fact that she is definitely still mortal- Quynh's touch has done nothing to heal her wounds, a bruise from when she bumped into a wall while carrying moving boxes still noticeable on her hip.

_Maybe_ , she thinks, _we at least won't switch again now that we're together and I can live out a mortal life._

But even then- she will age and die while Quynh will stay the same.

"...So... why aren't you mad at us?" Nile asks Quynh after dinner and promptly looks embarrassed for asking. "Uh, it's just that I think everyone expected you to be...?"

"Not that we don't appreciate you not trying to kill Andy" Nicky says drily, and Yusuf laughs, unrestrained happiness in his voice. Andy has seen him happy so often over the years, she had never noticed that even in his happiest moments there had been a shadow in his eyes- now that she can see it gone, it is obvious that it had been there.

"Why would I be mad?" Quynh asks, raising an eyebrow. "You looked for me, especially Anh... it's not her fault she couldn't find me. And I am not going to kill Andromache, she is mortal!"

"...How did you know she is mortal, or that she looked for you?" Yusuf asks her.

"Or where we live, for that matter," Nico adds.

"Through the dreams?" Nile asks, excited that she might have played a part in this amicable reunion.

Quynh slowly shakes her head. "No, I have never dreamt of you. You cannot sleep while you are drowning. I don't know why I haven't dreamt of you since..."

"If you haven't died since you came out of the water, that would do it" Andy explains. 

Quynh smiles at her, a bright, beaming smile, happy to have another mystery solved, and Andromache has to hide her face in Quynh's neck out of fear that she will simply _combust_ from so much love.

"...then how did you know?" Nile asks while Yusuf and Nico still coo over the two women in love.

At that, Andy and Quynh are finally forced to explain the switches.

The more they explain, the more the others stare.

Andy carefully doens't say that the switches are connected to her mortality, but when she tells them about the switch in safe house Charlie, Joe gives her such a suspicious look that she is afraid of being found out. She just hopes he won't say anything in front of Quynh.

"How does that even _work_?" Nile asks, wide-eyed, leaning over the table to gape at them some more, her chin almost in the Yoghurt Curry.

Quynh shrugs, and Andy rolls her eyes. "How does anything work?"

* * *

Once Andy starts to yawn, Quynh drags her away to bed even though it is still early in the evening, and the others graciously leave the second bedroom to them.

Joe and Nicky will survive a night on the couch.

Finally alone with Quynh, Andy lets herself break down.

Holding onto her like now she is the one drowning and Quynh is the only thing holding her afloat, she can't stop the tears from falling.

Quynh isn't doing much better herself, clinging to Andromache as if she is afraid she is going to vanish into thin air if she let go of her for even just a moment.

For long minutes, they just hold onto each other.

Quynh mumbles promises and thank-you's to long forgotten deities she barely believes in herself, then she moves up to press gentle kisses to Andromache's face.

She strokes her cheek with the back of her hand, remembering the time she had seen it in the reflection of a laptop screen, glad that this time it is really Andromache who is looking back at her.

Of course, it is bittersweet with Andromache still being mortal.

Andy reverently strokes over Quynh's face, over her hair...

Quynh scrunches up her face. "It's a mess" she says with a sigh, wiping away her tears before doing the same for Andromache. "I'm afraid I might have to cut it shorter than yours, even."

"You always loved you long hair" Andromache protests. 

"Think you can salvage it?"

Andy doesn't have much modern hair equipment herself, but a quick trip to the bathroom where they run into Nile leaves them with more combs brushes and products than they could possibly need.

Quynh kneels in front of the bed, Andy sitting down behind her, slowly starting to brush and gently entangle her hair, starting at the bottom so the hair tangles won't all pile up in a bad knot.

"I think I have to cut it here," she says, regretfully, when she reaches a particularly bad piece.

Quynh just looks up at her and smiles. "Don't worry about it, Anh. I already cut some of it to look... vaguely presentable for my journey, anyway."

"You never did say how you found us here." Andy says while she cuts off the strand, careful not to cut off more than necessary.

"I remembered where you stayed before," Quynh says. "And followed you from there."

Andy will ask her for the full story some other time- for now, she is content to keep working on her hair while Quynh rests against her legs, closing her eyes.

It feels strangely intimate, even though she is barely touching her skin.

Maybe she should grow out her own hair again, so Quynh can braid it the way she used to... although the other woman seems to like her current hairstyle, too.

"There" Andy murmurs, finally finished.

"Much better." Quynh nods as she strokes a hand through her hair. Turning around, she throws an arm around Andromache's neck to pull her in for a kiss. "Thank you."

Her voice has gotten husky, and Andy shudders. Apparently, she is not the only one affected by their intimacy.

She lets herself fall backwards onto the bed, pulling Quynh with her. 

Quynh's hands roam over her body, slipping underneath her shirt. Andy quickly lifts her arms to make it easier for her to undress her.

"I love you," Qunynh whispers while tracing every little bruise and scar on Andy's body with her fingertips, her lips. "I missed you." _I'll miss you even more when you are gone_.

"I missed you, too-" Andy's voice breaks. "So- so much, Quynh-"

She gasps when Quynh's hands dip lower, under the waistband of her pants.

"Is this alright?" Quynh asks her, and Andy can only nod. 

"Can I, too- I need to see you," 

They fumble with their clothes until they are both naked. Quynh stays perched over Andromache, careful not to lie on her too harshly, constantly aware of how _breakable_ Andromache is now.

Andy pulls her head down, making their lips meet and they trade open-mouthed kisses for a while until Andy's lips are kiss-swollen and red.

Quynh moves to Andromache's neck next, kissing and sucking her way down, watching in delight at how she leaves red-purple bruises in her wake. This, she could get used to, claiming Andromache, leaving her mark on her to show that she is hers.

Andy whimpers, tangling her hand in Quynh's hair as the other starts kissing and biting on her nipples.

When Quynh looks up at her with a smug grin on her face, she quickly flips them over, straddling Quynh's thighs.

Quynh is neither surprised nor affronted by her action, simply smiling up at Andromache, letting her take back control.

Andy leans over to kiss soundly before moving back up, flipping her hir out of her face with a movement of her head before pushing Quynh's legs apart ans settling in-between.

Dragging a finger through her folds, she catalogues every hitch in Quynh's breath, every movement of her hips, the fluttering of her eyelashes...

Licking her finger clean she smiles at Quynh who is giving her an exhasperated smile in return. "Don't tease, Anh!"

"Oh, I'd never."

Crawling on top of her, she moves her hand in-between her thighs again, moving upwards as she presses a kiss to Quynh's temple, then kissing her on the lips while she slips two fingers into her.

Quynh gasps, hands coming up to Anh's shoulders, scrambling for purchase.

Andy fucks Quynh in slow, deep movements, rubbing over her clit with her thumb and hitting her sweet spot inside on almost every stroke.

There is sweat on her forehead and her hand is starting to cramp, but she wouldn't stop for the world as Quynh gasps and mewls and contracts around her fingers.

When Quynh is getting close, she speeds up moving back to look at her face as Quynh comes with her lips in a perfect o-shape.

Fingers slipping free, she holds her through the aftershocks. 

Quynh quickly recovers, pushing Anh to sit up with her back against the headboard, leaving lovebites over her neck and breasts before she buries her head in her lap and licks over her clit.

Anh whimpers, hands fisting in Quynh's hair.

_Finally_ she has her back.

A memory flashes through her mind: lying on a bed quite similar to this one, coming with her own fingers deep inside of her, pretending like they were still Quynh's...

"Can you - your hand-"

Quynh moves a finger to her entrance, looking up at her with questioning eyes and Andy can only nod.

Feeling her lover's finger deep inside of her makes her whimper. 

After a moment to let Anh adjust, Quynh withdraws her finger again to fuck her, but Andy catches her wrist to still her hand. She can't quite explain why she wants her to just be inside her, unmoving... It still doesn't do much for her, she wouldn't be able to come just from this, but it does make her feel- something. Maybe she's developing a new fetish for Quynh's hands.

Quynh goes back to licking and sucking at her clit, alternating between kitten licks, circling around it and suction.

Andy is getting close, and Quynh keeps going, steadily licking in circles now until Anh comes with a low shout of her name, her back arching as she shudders before falling back against the wall, completely boneless.

Quynh snuggles up to her, helping her to lie down as all Andromache can do is suck in breaths and hold onto Quynh while she comes down from her hight.

Thus entwined, they quickly fall asleep.

* * *

Andy wakes because she has to pee.

Perching her head in her hand, she just watches Quynh sleep for a moment, her skin glowing in the light of a street lamp outside.

She'd really like to let the other woman sleep, but... they are quite stuck together with sweat, the smell of sex heavy in the air.

"Come on, love..." she murmurs into Quynh's ear, and Quynh blinks awake, raising an eyebrow but letting Anh drag her into the bathroom.

Andy uses the loo and Quynh return Nile's hair products to the cabinet before they are hopping into the shower together.

Quynh revels in the warm water, letting Andromache wash her hair before returning the favor.

"I really like your hair short... although it is hard to hold onto." she smiles as she rinses Anh's hair with fresh water.

"Might grow one side a little longer then... to my shoulder?" she asks flipping her hair out of her eyes once more. Having it a little longer would also mean that she would be able to tuck this annoying strand behind her ear so it doesn't fall into her face all the time.

"Sounds like a strange style, but I think I would like it!" Quynh smiles. "Is that a normal hairstyle, now?"

"It's called a sidecut, I think" Andy replies. "Not something everyone everywhere has, but quite some people do, and there's even stranger stuff... I saw a guy who had the short side coloured neon-green on the subway last month, but I think that would be a bit much for me," she drily adds.

Quynh laughs. "And both men and women can have the same funny hairstyles?" she asks. "I like the future already!"

"Ugh, just you wait" Andromache grumbles. 

But with Quynh by her side, the terrors that are the twenty-first century don't seem quite so daunting anymore.

Together, they slip under the covers without bothering with clothes, going to sleep with their foreheads touched together, soft, content smiles on both of their lips.

* * *

The second time Quynh wakes is with a shout, coughing and shivering as if she had just come from the ocean.

The darkness around her feels threatning, she frantically feels about for something, anything-

Suddenly, her hands meet warm skin and An is there, calming her down with sweet words and gently strokes over her back and Quynh remembers that she isn't trapped anymore.

Still, the darkness scares her.

"Light!" she manages to gasp out in distress when she has her breathing back under control, but when Andy pulls away to get to the light switch, she mewls in protest, not wanting to be left alone in the dark.

Thinking quickly, Andy snatches her phone from the bedside table, turning on the screen light and handing it to Quynh before making her way to the wall and turning on the overhead lighting before rushing back to her love. 

"Shh, shh, it's alright," she whispers into her skin, and after a while Quynh relaxes into the soothing touch.

"I'm so sorry," Andy murmurs.

"It's not your fault" Quynh weakly protests.

"I can still be sorry you had to suffer through it all, my love." Andy replies.

"You had to suffer through it often enough yourself"

Andromache says nothing to that.

"Do you ever have nightmares?" Quynh asks, so quietly Andromache barely understands her.

"Yes... sometimes. Not any more so than about- anything else."

Quynh nods.

Then she curls up with her head on An's chest.

"Hold me?"

"Of course."

Leaving on the light, they soon go back to sleep.

* * *

On the next day, the two women wake up the way they always used to: back to back, not quite touching but hearing each other breathe, facing outwards to protect from danger.

What isn't like always, however, is the fact that they have swapped bodies once more.

Andromache turns around.

It is a strange, eerie feeling, to be looking at her own form this way.

The body she is in now feels strange too, like it doesn't _fit_ quite right. She had never paid attention to it while she had been drowning as Quynh, but now she is getting a little taste of how it must have been for her in Andy's body.

Next to her, she feels Quynh- and it is still Quynh, even when she looks like Andy herself- stir. Quynh scrunches up her face the way she always does when she comes awake.

For a moment, they simply stare at each other.

Quynh reaches out to touch her- _her own face_...

At the contact, they both feel a familiar shiver run through them, the world going blurry for a moment as they feel something settle.

Somehow, when they open their eyes back in their own bodies, they know it is final.

They will not have to switch again.

Quynh leans in and kisses Andy softly, glad to be back in her own body, feeling like she has finally come home again.

For a moment, Andy kisses her back, floating in the feeling of _rightness_.

Then she jerks back. 

"Andy?" Quynh asks, sounding a little confused.

Of course, she wouldn't know why Andy is surprised- she had never told her about the effect the switches usually have on her.

But this time, she doesn't spit blood.

She isn't feeling faint.

Was it just because the switch hadn't taken long enough?

Quynh gasps, touching her neck.

Andy tries to look down- what is it, is she bleeding after all and just hadn't noticed it yet?

But then she remembers what Quynh had done with her neck and chest the night before and what is missing from it now: the hickeys are gone, entirely disappeared.

Now that she thinks about it, the old aches in her joints and the place where she had been shot aren't there anymore, either.

Looking down, she finds the old scar gone, too.

"Quynh..." she whispers. "Do you think...?"

Quynh nods, tears in her eyes. Andromache is feeling quite emotional herself, but she has to see for herself before she can believe that this is true.

Dragging a nail through the soft skin on her wrist, she watches herself bleed- and immediately heal again.

Together, they stare at the blood.

Quynh slowly moves her thumb through the blood, wiping it away to show the unblemished skin under the blood.

Both look up at the same time, their eyes wide, then, slowly, they start to smile, first lightly then beaming at each other.

Quynh laughs in exhilarated delight, holding onto Andromache, no longer afraid that she might break her.

Andy can't stop grinning, kissing Quynh's forehead with a _smack_.

Quynh squeaks rather loudly, and Andy lets her head fall back in a loud laugh before jumping up and twirling Quynh around the room, making her squeak even louder.

As Anh pulls Quynh closer again, hugging her to herself as they dance around the room, Nico opens door.

"It sounded like you were murdering a mouse in here." he dryly states when they look at him.

Quynh laughs and jumps over to him with Andromache's hand in her own, they twirl around the room with him, not caring that the two women are, in fact, still naked.

Nico just chuckles, accepting his fate. _Of course they would be happy,_ he thinks, _they are together again._

Before the women can explain just why they are so elated, Yusuf knocks on the doorframe, staring into the room: "...what is going on?"

"Anh is immortal again!" Quynh laughs in delight.

"What?!" Nico stares at them, looking Andy up and down in search of scars that are no longer there before hugging her tightly.

Yusuf stands rooted to the spot, staring at them open mouthed in shock.

While Nicky and Andromache stil hug, Quynh takes a pillow from the bed and throws it at Joe to snap him out of it.

It works- he ducks, and the pillow hits Nile in the face.

She had come to check up on all the noise, clad in her favorite superhero pyjamas, and fishes the pillow out of the air after it bounces off of her face. "What'sup?" she asks rather sleepily.

"Andromache- Andromache is no longer mortal!" Joe stammers. 

Nile gapes at them. "For real?"

When Andy nods, she squeaks and bouces over to give her a hug. 

That snaps Yusuf out of his stupor, too, and he rushes over to join the laughing and dancing group-hug.

Surrounded by her family, holding the woman she loves in her arms and the future stretching ahead of her once more, Andromache the Scythian feels happier than ever before.

* * *

~ f i n i ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There is a sex scene in this, if you don't want to read it you can just skip ahead when they start to undress and continue reading after the next lines
> 
> End Note:  
> FINALLY A HAPPY ENDING! How could I write anything less <3 I want my gaybies to be happy after all. 
> 
> You might have noticed me turning this into a series, and while I don't have any coherent plans for long sequels, I might write some more one-shots and ficlets in this 'verse, so do check it out :)  
> & Let me know what you think- what should I write a one-shot about? Something smutty, some fluff? 
> 
> also if any artists out there would draw the final scene I would be eternally grateful bc I would love to see that but I can't draw for shit xD
> 
> btw, thx to notasgeekyasidlike's comment on the last chapter, I might write an epilogue about booker and Quynh, set in the 'six month later' movie scene (which would be october in this 'verse?), so stay tuned for that!
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr: [personal](https://lilolilyrae.tumblr.com/) \- [fandom](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/) \- [writing-wip-blog](https://thelucyverse.tumblr.com/) :)


	15. 2016 (October)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue time! Adding this to the main fic instead of as a seperate part bc it's still technically during movie canon time :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020/10/31 | 2020/11/01  
> For [notasgeekyasidlike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notasgeekyasidlike/pseuds/notasgeekyasidlike), because it's inspired by their comment on chapter 13!
> 
> The post-credit scene with Quynh at Booker's place is set 6 months after the betrayal, so in October 2016 for this fic's timeline if I managed to do the math right :)
> 
> Took me a while to upload this, but I got a bit sidetracked by the TOG Femslash Fortnight (Didn't I say I wasn't gonna write for that?? Well now I've written almost half the fic in the collection xD) which ends today, and instead of writing sth for the 'free choice' part I finally got around to editing and uploading this :) Guess I could have added it to the collection if I had uploaded it as a seperate fic instead of a chapter, but... eh, my desire to stick to my personal fic aesthetique was stronger xD  
> Still, femslash fortnight was a super fun event! Did post some andromaquynh moodboards on [tumblr](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/post/633535655800143872) today tho, feel free to check those out!

Sébastien le Livre is feeling absolutely miserable.

He's drinking- had been drinking for months now, with only little breaks to sleep, forge a new passport, eat, get himself a new flat and sleep some more.

Today, he's coming home from a night spent at bars and clubs and perhaps passed out in alleyways from time to time.

Don't judge, he's an immortal, it's not like it's going to kill himself.

Alright, so maybe even he is starting to judge himself for his bad habits. One more reason to stop his brain from working- by consuming even more alcohol.

He had first started drinking only after he turned immortal.

Well, he hadn't been abstinent in his mortal life, especially not in the army, but he only started drinking excessively after returning to his family and being called a demon and a narcissistic asshole for his troubles.

Then, and in all the following years, he used to drink because life was shit, there was no escape from it and he wanted to forget that he existed at all- now, he is drinking because _he_ is shitty and he wants to forget what he did and where it had gotten him.

A hundred years in exile.

Maybe that isn't much for immortals who lived for millenia in the past, but it's a godforsaken third of his lifetime, if not more... and honestly, he can't imagine the other immortals feeling the passing of time any differently than him, not even Andy.

They might live longer than mortals, but he still feels every moment, second, minute, day, pass just as much as they would.

"Hello Sébastien! Coming home from work so early?" one of his nosy neighbours asks him as he unlocks the front door. He just grunts in reply.

Ugh. He had thought it would help when he gave himself his real first name as his identity for the year- after all, he had missed the name since the eighteenth century- but now he just misses being called _Booker_.

Is he starting to forget his real family?

There's a pang in his heart at calling his wife and children his 'real' family. They're his family by marriage and blood, which is definitely real, yes... but his immortal family feels _real_ just the same.

And he had to go and ruin it.

When he finally manages to open the door, his grip on the bottle is too loose, it drops and smashes to pircrs on the stone floor of the foyer.

Booker kicks the shards against the stairs in frustration.

Can nothing go right for him, ever, at all?

He sits on the stairs with a deep sigh, staring unseeingly into space for a long moment before dragging himself up by the handrail and the wall.

his keys are jingling in his hand as he moves back down to his door- but when he wants to put the key into the keyhole, the door already opens, not locked at all.

Sébastien immediately slips his gun out of his pants. He might be an idiot drunk, but he's not entirely stupid, and he always locks his door.

He is not going to let himself be _taken_ again. Not even if it _did_ mean a chance to find death, not if it could mean that whoever takes him could also get to the others- he has no idea how well he would hold up under torture, and he doesn't want to find out.

And who else would be here? There's no way his team would break his exile already, he knows no-one else here and if it was someone breaking and entering, they'd've gone for the pretty flat of Mademoiselle Denis, not his shithole. 

Slowly pushing open the door to the kitchen, he almost jumps when-

"Booker... it's nice to finally meet you"

The woman- asian, wearing an expensive-looking red coat- is just casually leaning against the kitchen counter, drinking from _his_ sole undamaged waterglass.

He keeps pointing his gun at her, yet she looks entirely unconcerned. 

Do they have him surrounded? No, mortals still wouldn't be so blasé about their impending death, even if their allies could avenge them.

"Do we know each other?" he presses out, and the woman tilts her head.

"In a way."

Booker squints at her. What is she, who is this woman? An enemy, someone they missed in Merrick's ranks? There's a blurry memory behind the alcohol-induced fog of his mind- wait. She does look familiar, but not from the fight...

 _Quynh_.

He blinks slowly, making sure it really is her and not just his imagination. Well... She will have to excuse him for not immediately recognising her, he is not used to her face not being contorted in pain... Okay, that is probably not a thing he should say out loud.

Slowly lowering his weapon, Sébastien watches as who is most likely an immortal almost as ancient as Andy puts down the glass of water. She looks normal for someone so old. Not that the other immortals don't look normal, but- oh, his mind is a mess. 

"...Quynh? You look... good for a dead woman? No, wait, Nile dreamt of you, right? Well you still look good for a drowning woman... Uhm. nice to finally meet you?"

Quynh smiles at his fumbling words. "Oh we have met once before- twice actually, but we had a conversation once. I just happened to be in Andromache's body at the time."

Booker stares at her. 

Alright, _no_ , plain no.

He blinks, but the clearly-a-hallucination doesn't go away.

"...Can you repeat that."

"You heard correctly: we had switched bodies at the time."

Sébastien's eyes slowly move from Quynh to the rows of alcohol bottles on the shelf, he then proceeds to dump their contents down the drain of the kitchen sink. Not that he doesn't appreciate the alcohol-fog-mindset a lot of the time, but he had never planned to loose himself _this_ completely.

Behind himself, he hears Quynh laugh out loud, and Booker makes shooing motions at her without turning back around, his face twisted into a grimace.

He's going to go to sleep, and when he wakes up, the woman will never have been there... Or at the very least, her words are going to make a modicum of sense.

* * *

Quynh's explanation only makes slightly more sense once Sébastien is sober half an hour later.

He has never been so grateful for the fact that immortals never stay drunk for long- in fact, he usually wishes it were different, but now he is glad to have a clear head- plus, Quynh seems to be itching to move, and he wouldn't want to get in the way of a possibly-insane ancient warrior. Even if she says that switching bodies with Andromache (and again, how insane is _that_?!?) kept her sane... well, that's her personal assessment, and he'd like to make sure that it's a reasonable one before he believes it, thank you very much.

When he asks her where she wants to take him, Quynh gives him a tight smile.

"I cannot bring you back to our family- they all have have to forgive and forget, especially Yusuf and Nicolò, it would hurt them too much to see you now, before your penance is done, and that would not help anyone. But Andromache and Nile are waiting for us down the street- just to make proper introductions, you will be on your own again after that.

"Girl's night, huh?" Sébastien shakes his head at his own words, and Quynh laughs again. She laughs so very freely for a woman who has suffered so much... in fact, she seems to be doing better than he has done for centuries. Still... he doesn't believe that it is all sunshine and roses there, either.

"We can even paint your nails if you want to!" Quynh's snicker draws him from his thoughts. Nile has shown her what she deems 'classic' american teen movies, and Quynh absolutely adores the idea of a slumber party.

Sébastien shakes his head at her, then frowns. "But really... they're both here?"

Quynh's smile goes softer. "Nile doesn't truly understand how profound your mistake was- she doesn't condemn you the way the others do. Anh does blame you- but mortality has reminded her how precious time can be, I believe, and of course she is willing to be civil for my sake. I did not want to wait an entire century to meet the rest of the family."

"And Andy is... doing okay? Um. Not sick or anything?" 

There's an urgency in Livre's voice, and Quynh carefully schools her expression to something neutral as she answers in negative.

The man does not know that Andromache is no longer mortal? No, she hadn't mentioned it in her own quick explanation, but she would have thought Andromache had let him know. Apparently, she is still more hurt by him than Quynh had thought... Now, she is even more surprised that the other woman agreed to accompany her and Nile.

Well- she might have just figured that Quynh would have gone either way and that she didn't want to let her out of her sight. They really need to re-learn to communicate properly again.

For now, Quynh banishes these thoughts and leads Livre to a café at the corner of the street.

"Hi Booker!" Nile greets him in excitement. He gives her an awkward, quick hug while eying Andy.

"Hi..." he nods at Andy. She had hugged him goodbye, but he is not sure whether he deserves a hug hello. Andy just awkwardly nods back before sipping on her coffee.

Nile chatters on about the jobs they have done, the countries they have visited and the things she has learned since she has become immortal, desperately trying to fill the awkward silence with her voice.

Taking pity on her, Quynh waves the waiter over to them and orders coffee for herself and Sébastien, who also adds pastries for everyone to their order. 

"Want to see whether I can guess all the ingredients in those, too?" Andy asks. It's an offer of peace- well, of a temporary truce at least- and Booker gratefully takes it, laughing only slightly strained.

"Without Nico here? Who would bet against me?"

Quynh chuckles. "That sounds like there is a story there?"

Andy and Booker tell Nile and Quynh all about the Baklava-bets until their french pastries arrive, after which they fall silent for as long as it takes to eat it, only interrupted when one wants to try the pastry of someone else. Booker doesn't dare ask to try any of the other even after giving parts of his to all of them, but Nile quietly pushes a piece of her cannelé onto his plate.

With the food eaten, the four of them talk about nothing of significane for a while, until Quynh finally takes a deep breath and looks straight at Sébastien.

"You were not doing well, when I found you."

Booker winces. "I don't think I was doing well since... well, ever, really."

Andy frowns, and Nile looks concerned, but Quynh pushes on. "You can't keep drinking yourself to death. What are you going to do when the hundred years come to an end? You'll barely be functioning at that point."

"She's right" Nile surprises the others by speaking up before Andromache can. "I mean, I know going to therapy would be hard when you can't tell them what's really going on, but maybe you can go to grief counceling? Saying that your family died should be enough for that..."

Sébastien doesn't look very happy at these suggestions, but he doesn't outright disagree, either, so Quynh is taking it as a win.

"At least get a job, Book." Anh grumbles. "Or a dog, best both. Don't just suffer for a century."

"I couldn't even keep a fish alive" Booker says, not replying to the part about a job. In all honesty he trusts himself around humans even less than around animals.

"That's cause theyre not as easy pets as everyone thinks!" Nile jumps in, sounding oddly passionate about fish of all things. "Uh, I've worked at a pet store one summer..." she explains, flustered. "You could get an outdoor cat? It'll feed itself so it won't be too bad if you forget once or twice..."

"...or it will remind you of its existence with nice sharp claws." Quynh adds in a deadpan voice.

Andy laughs out loud, and Booker has to smile.

Perhaps his team has some good ideas after all.

And maybe, maybe, life won't be so terrible if can spend it with friends. If he has to wait a century to have this again, so be it.

He will make sure that he will be ready for it once the time has come... although he can't help hoping that they will keep in touch from time to time. A hundred years still feel like a long, long time.

* * *

After walking Sébastien back to his flat and saying their goodbyes, the three woman start their journey home.

While Nile is getting them a cab, Quynh pulls Andromache into a quick but nevertheless heated kiss.

"Thank you for doing this."

Andy rolls her eyes. "'s not like I hate him."

Quynh smiles at her, and Andy raises an eyebrow.

"So, what did you think of him?"

Quynh looks at the traffic for a moment, thinking. "He is... broken, obviously. I don't think he ever got over what happened to him, and he's traumatised... I know what that feels like.Of course what happened to him is different than what I went through, what we went through, but it's just as bad."

Andy sniffs to show that she disagrees with the last part, but Quynh continues: "He wants to heal, now, and that's what he needs to really heal. I hope he does get that dog or cat, it would do him some good, and... Yes, I like him, despite everything. When he isn't staring at the distance and brooding, he can be fun." 

She tilts her head in Andy's direction and raises an eyebrow. "When are you going to tell him that you are immortal again?"

Andromache smirks at her. "Whenever I feel like him thinking I'm going to die for so long makes up for the rest of his exile."

"You want to get him back earlier!" Quynh laughs. "I should have known."

Andy shakes her head. "Not get him back to really join us, but... I won't contact him again, for now. When he did his penance, though, we can meet him again. Like today." 

Quynh nods her assent, and when Nile waves them over to the taxi, they snuggle together in the back seat. 

Quynh looks at the scenery they drive past while Andromache is watching Quynh. It didn't escape her how her wife mentioned that she isn't doing perfectly yet herself, either, and she knows that it is true for both of them.

Still- they are together, and as long as they have each other and the rest of their family, 

Andromache takes Quynh's hand in her own and presses a kiss to the back of it. Quynh looks over with a pleasantly surprised smile, and Andy kisses her smiling lips, too, before leaning her head on her shoulder and letting Quynh turn back to the window.

Yes, they will be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3<3<3
> 
> If you liked this epilogue, let me know- and what your fav part was :D  
> I already posted two more little ficlets in this series, so do feel free to read those if you haven't yet!
> 
> Update 2020-12-30:  
>  **There are 10+ future ficlets now! You can find their chronological order in the[series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980067) notes :)**

**Author's Note:**

> More Andromaquynh fanfic by me [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/works?fandom_id=44512552)!


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